Transformers Animated: Team Diana
by Tinna Minor
Summary: Set in Darth T-Rex's TFA Cybertronian Genesis:  This is the story of a team of Decepticons, set before the discovery of the AllSpark.  But this team would go beyond anything the Decepticon Council of Generals would ever dream.
1. Introductions

Transformers Animated: Team Diana

AN: Welcome to Team Diana! First off, big thanks to autobot12328 for beta reading and dealing with me this past month. Another shout out to Darth T-Rex for allowing this story to happen. I've had this story in the works for over a year now, though I didn't start typing until the beginning of August, and I can't wait to introduce you to all of our characters! A couple of important notes: the Decepticon Nightbird will refer to a Galvatron, but it is not the Galvatron in this story. More on that will be explained later. The events that Hook refers to will be brought up later in the story in the form of flashbacks or just fond memories. Well then, let's begin!

Here is how time works.

Stellar Cycle- a year  
>Megacycle- a day<br>Cycle- an hour  
>Jours- 30 minutes<br>Breem- a minute  
>Kilk- a second<p>

Of the First Four Receiving the News

**Timecode: 9501.2.05**

New Kaon was a dark rock, dead and the Capitol of the Decepticon operations. The surface was hard, metallic, and cold like the occupants.

Part of the surface was covered in poor buildings, ships, and large centers of activity. In the centers of activity, one would be able to see the fights and the gambling that all the Decepticons stranded on the planet took part in so that they could distract themselves from the depression that lived through the colony since Megatron had left on his journey to find the AllSpark.

While one side of New Kaon was lit with Decepticon activity, the other was dark and uninhabited. On this side, if you looked closely, you could just make the silhouette of a mech. He was hard to make out, because his armor was the same dark purple as the rocky ground that surrounded him. Judging by a set of wings that were folded up against his legs, he was a flyer, but than other than that, his armor was well fitted to his frame, and seemed to emphasis his figure. Two things drew attention, the first being an orange cannon on his lower right arm. It was nowhere near as big or bulky as Megatron's fusion cannon, but it stood out well against the purple and there was no doubt that it could cause serious harm. The next detail was his helm, violet also, but it cupped his head, and on the brow three points arose like a crown.

Against everything in New Kaon, which appeared old and crumbling, the mech was expected to bare the same tiredness of everything else, but one look at his face told a very different story. The protoform of his face was light and smooth, showing his youth, while his red optics blazed with a passion currently unknown to his home.

He was Galvatron II, a first lieutenant in the Decepticon army and probably the youngest Decepticon in existence.

At the moment, Galvatron was laying on the ground, staring up to the thousands of blinking lights in the void that was space. Every now and then his lips would form a smile and he'd take his left arm and trace a shape that he had identified among the glowing points.

Off in the distance, he could hear the roar of thrusters. He ignored them, snickering instead as he traced out the shape of a space cruiser that had crashed on New Kaon only the day before.

There was the sound of whirling parts indicating a transformation, then the loud thud of someone landing feet first. Galvatron didn't turn around to address the Decepticon.

"Yo."

There was no reply. Galvatron sat up still looking up at the stars.

"How did you know I was here?"

"This is the farthest point away from New Kaon's light population, and you don't like being with normal Decepticons," the other answered in a low voice that sounded uncaring.

Galvatron turned to take in his teacher. A flyer, but a far different model; strongly built, with pointed wings looming over his back and a high helmet with a pair of vertically long crests. He bore the same violet color scheme but appeared far older.

"Who is it that wants me so bad that they would send you to pick me up, Cyclonus?"

Cyclonus didn't seem offended by Galvatron's tone, and simply replied, "General Strika wishes to meet you in the docks."

Having delivered the message, Cyclonus proceeded to take off again back towards the populated district. Galvatron waited until he could no longer see him, then transformed to follow.

Flying wasn't very bad, in fact, flying to the Decepticons was often considered mandatory. The only Decepticon's that could get away with not flying were those in high ranks that had proved they didn't need the sky to terminate Autobots. Galvatron himself liked flying not as a strategetic ability, but for flying itself. He could perform manuvers in the air that were impossible on the ground, and any negative energy could be drained out of his processing unit while flying.

General Strika was a big femme with a thick frame plated in purple, sliver and golden armor. She had two large cannons that sprouted from her shoulders right above her squat head with beady red optics. Normally, Galvatron didn't like to dwell on her because she was, quite frankly to him, rather unpleasant to look at. He respected her only so far as she was Cyclonus' leader in Team Charr, but other than that, didn't have much interest in her. In return, Strika's attitude toward him was uncaring but attentive due to his relationship with Cyclonus. She never said anything, but Galvatron was sure that if he looked bad, it would reflect on her, and she could end his meetings with Cyclonus.

Part of Galvatron didn't really care though. He supposed that being around Cyclonus all this time had resulted in gaining his dismissive attitude. Only two megacycles ago, his teacher had admited that there was very little left for him to learn, and the remaining knowledge could only be gained through first hand experience. Staying and sparring with him would be nice, but now that they were practically finished, the few ties to New Kaon that had ever existed were cut.

The population came into sight, and Galvatron opted not to land and walk through the crowds but to land in the docks. Last time he tried to walk, he got into four fights and was an hour late for his meeting with Adrimal Sky-Byte, the closest thing he had to a friend.

The docks came into sight, and Galvatron transformed in midair touching down in front of the entrance. Stepping inside, he was greeted by eight ships currently docked: Team Charr's the Payload, Trypticon, the Jailor, the Ares, the Warhelm, the Smuggler, the Avenger, and a new ship that Galvatron couldn't place. Sitting outside the Payload were all of Team Charr except for Blackout. Strika caught his eye and he approached carelessly.

"Ah, General Strika," he grinned calling out as he strode over, "How wonderful it would be to see you again if you weren't the herald of bad news!"

The Decepticon General's optics flashed, "What makes you so sure of bad news?"

Her voice was thick and deep, but the femme cords were still there, if you bothered to listen for them. Galvatron smirked as he looked at Cyclonus through the corner of his optic. There was no sign of acknowledgement, which cemented his theory further.

"Because the high and low don't mingle," he sighed dramatically, "unless something bad happens."

"You meet Sky-Byte regularly without trouble," another member with green and black plating drawled through a helmet that was similiar a test tube filled with green liquid. Oilslick, a Decepticon chemist and cyberninja.

"Sky-Byte will have a drink with anyone that will listen to him and his slagged poetry," Galvatron countered, knowing that much was true. Really they met because Sky-Byte was the only bot on all of New Kaon that had a sense of humor that didn't involve blowing up other mechs. Not many Decepticons could stand the Admiral, but Galvatron was very different.

"First Lieutenant Galvatron II," Strika suddenly addressed drawing herself to her full hight, and instinctively Galvatron went to attention, "you have been promoted to Captain."

The sudden rigorness in Galvatron dropped like a bomb. "What?"

"You will be assigned a crew and given a ship to take on various missions that will be chosen by the Council of Generals," she continued looking down at him unimpressed. "There will be a ceremony in the next megacycle in which you receive all of their names and begin active duty."

Whether or not she continued, Galvatron wouldn't know, for at that moment, his systems promptly sent him into stasis.

-(\:/)-

In the midst of an astroid belt, a small ship called the Strangler floated. Outside of it, a femme looked on in silence. She was cloated in thin grey armor that also covered her mouth. Around her hips many weapons could be seen, such as two short energy swords and packs containing shock shuriken. There was no armor to indicate a vehicle mode, but there was a piece of vertical armor on her right shoulder that displayed the Decepticon badge that glowed in the faint star light. Her optics were a bloody, angry red that were bright in contrast to their colorless surroundings.

She was Nightbird. The first and only femme cyberninja currently known.

Noises began to drift from the Strangler through her commlink.

'Nightbird, guess what? You've been reassigned!' the scratchy voice of Bombshell exclaimed. He sounded happy enough. But then, all the Insecticons hated her.

'Hurry back, back.' Sharpnel, their squad Captain cut in. 'We don't want to be late for the Generals in New Kaon, Kaon.'

Nightbird didn't speak into her commlink. But then, she didn't speak at all. It was a choice she had made at the beginning of the war. Her closest friend had been killed by the Autobots for not speaking out against the Decepticons when the uprisings were small. Believeing him to be a traitor in the making, he was executed.

She was Nightbird. The fact that she existed was criminal to the Autobots.

There was no such thing as a femme cyberninja, others had said. Femmes were designed to care for the young. There was only one femme in the first thirteen, and she had never fought.

Galvatron had changed that. He had taken the foolish and comfortable Council and pushed them to the ground. He changed the very course of life with his actions. He created the Decepticons with legends such as Bludgeon who had taught her the ways of the cyberninja, even if it was against everything that the cyberninjas preached.

She was Nightbird. She remembered.

The time before the war, the times in between, what brought it on, and the true leader. She remembered Galvatron finding Megatron, training him, and then Megatron taking up his blades and slaying his mentor.

The Decepticons had hated Galvatron at that point. They had thought of him as a simple mad mech who would destroy them all. Megatron became to them the savior that Galvatron had tried to be. Galvatron was all but forgotten.

But she had known Galvatron, had been with him in the beginning. She knew that in his last stellar cycles, Galvatron who had once been a proud defender began to hear the Well of AllSparks calling. He would have left earlier if not for the Decepticons. Believing that it was not the end he wanted, he did begin to drift in and out of reality. He did his best to focus on completeing his work: taking back the planet that he was losing. Then Megatron prevented it all.

She was Nightbird. She would never forgive Megatron.

'Nightbird, now, now!' Sharpnel's voice screamed through the commlink.

Nightbird took one last look at the astroid belt, then boarded the Strangler. It was time to return to New Kaon and begin another life in Megatron's army.

-(\:/)-

Lucifer was a Decepticon colony renonwed for it ship building. From single fighters to war ships, the Decepticons of the army could boast if their ship was built in its yards. Any mech from the planet was better fed than other Decepticons and had more pride in their ability. They were often teased about not going into combat, but the standard response from any of the ship builders would be, 'and your ship's from where..?'

On this planet, in the ship yards, was a mech with black and green plating. Over his right shoulder was a crane and a red visor covered his optics. The mech was reading a reassignment order with pursed lips and a deep scowl. His ship designs were state of the art, his works treasured, and the mechs he repaired from time to time went into battle with better results than before. But then again, most of his work was perfect. He was simply a genius, and not afraid to admit it.

This was Hook. An engineer that rivaled even some of the Autobot's best. And he was being reassigned to work as a medic on a crew.

"They're insane," he snarled to no one in particular. A couple of optics looked up from their work at the other desks in the room. "Completely clonked."

All the rest of the mechs in the room sighed or rolled their optics. They were quite used to Hook's drama.

"Who designed the Nemesis? I did," Hook stood up and began to rant, "Who was the one that saved Megatron's life in the battle of Tyger Pax? That was me!"

Across the room, many mechs began to mime Hook's frantic yammerings, smirking quietly.

"Who got Shockwave into Autobot command? Me! Who designed the facilities in New Kaon? Hook! Who reforges Megatron's swords everytime he goes out and breaks them?"

"Hook the magnificent," one of the mechs snickered.

"HOOK THE MAGNIFICENT!"

Mechs began to groan.

"And they think that I would be better off serving on some Primus forsaken ship in the middle of nowhere? They've-"

"WHAT!"

The entire room was staring at Hook in complete amazement. Hook stared back waiting for the uproar of refusals. They all began to imagine a day without the perfect Hook...

Roars of excitement filled the room. Hook found himself shocked at his fellow engineers' behavior. Each turned to the other and began to congratulate themselves on lasting this long. One mech began to plan a party.

Hook began to pull himself together. Shaking with silent fury, Hook took his reassignment orders and charged out of the his shop to his private quarters leaving the mechs considered in his mind as associates. He began shoving things into crates and downloading files onto data pads. Those idiots. Didn't they realize all that he had done for them? What he could continue to do for the army?

Maybe these mechs were wimps and just needed a little tune up. Hook's processor began to build on the idea. Perhaps if he upgraded the new squad and they did extremely well, they would let him come back. Or maybe reassignment was a vacation that the Council of Generals was giving him under the mask of work.

His mood began to brighten. Reassignment didn't sound so bad anymore.

-(\:/)-

At the far side of New Kaon, there was a set of barracks three times as big as a normal barracks nearby. Outside, in the front was a crowd watching and placing bets of energon cubes and credits as two huge mechs sparred. One was Devastator, a tall green and purple mech with fists that made huge holes in the pavement everytime he missed his opponent. The other was Predaking, no where near as large as his adversary but quicker and bearing a great deal more weapons of arcane nature to Devastator's blaster. As the two tried to pound the other, bets were placed by the regular troops for length of the battle, the winner, number of times a weapon was used, and number of words said by one of the fighters.

"Devastator smash Preda-thing!" The green mech charged.

These two fighters were members of a group of Decepticons christened the Heavy Brigade. All of them were literally living weapons, Devastator being the oldest and developed in the time of the first Galvatron. When Megatron came to power, he authorized the building of more which gave birth to Predaking and the well known Blackout. When the squad was first sent into action, they were lead by the powerful Lugnut. After Cybertron had been lost, the squad was split.

Five Heavies were currently docked in New Kaon of the previous ten. Predaking and Devastator stayed on New Kaon full time as defenders. Menasor of Team Inferno was resting in the back along with Blackout of Team Charr, who appeared to be trying to remember something, and the unassigned Bruticus.

Menasor was between the size of the two mechs duking it out to the pleasure of the audience. He was mostly black with stripes of purple. Blackout was the size of Devastator, but much thicker and smarter, though it is to say that Devastator was the simpliest mech in the Decepticon army. Both watched the fight eagerly, though every now and then Blackout would frown.

Sitting beside Blackout was Bruticus. He was as big as Menasor, but with bigger guns on his back, thicker plating, and longer but extremely thick arms. His armor was a creamy white and a deep green. The lower half of his face was obstructed by a jaw clamp. He didn't look very interested in the fight. Instead his attention was focused on a data pad in his hands. His large fingers moved with speed and deftness across the screen at the same speed of the two Heavies fighting, if not faster. He was playing a number game. The data pad was full of number games that younglings played in the third stage of their devolpment. He was getting very good at them, though no one ever noticed.

They all thought he was stupid. He didn't think he was stupid. He was smarter than Blackout. He just had a hard time talking. Words in his processor had a hard time coming out of his vocalizer. But everybody always said, "break this, Bruticus" or "kill the Autobots, Bruticus" and sometimes even "Do you know what that means Bruticus?" then they would laugh at him. Back when he first was sparked, he didn't know any better and Lugnut seemed like the rest of the Heavies, even if he was much smaller. What Lugnut said to do, he would do. But then he began to ask questions. Lugnut would never give a clear answer. He would just tell him, "Our master demands it" or similar. One day, Bruticus got the chance to ask Megatron.

Something very funny had happened. Megatron and his men seemed surprised by his asking, but then Megatron began to explain using very big words and Bruticus listened very carefully. After all, it was his Lugnut's master, and he liked Lugnut. Even as Megatron lectured, Lugnut was watching him with a very blissful expression. Then Megatron mentioned things about destruction and how he needed to do things. After Megatron stopped talking, Bruticus noticed that the other Decepticons were snickering. What had he said that was so funny? He began to review the new information in his processor. Then he began to notice patterns, suggestions, prompts and baits to make him do things. It hit him suddenly; he was a pawn, he was nothing but a tool for destruction. But he decided to take things slowly for the others. He started with asking why they were laughing. Megatron had frowned at both the squadron and at Bruticus. Then he told Megatron something that changed everything.

_"I don't...want...to break...other bots"_

The reaction was immediate. Everyone had stared, then burst out laughing. Even Megatron had smirked. He tried to explain again Decepticon principles but Bruticus had interrupted him.

_"Not...fight...Megatron not need...to fight...you...can make peace...Bruticus...not want...destruction..."_

The others had started laughing even harder, but Megatron was now frowning. Bruticus could see something in his optics, something that wanted to destroy. Suddenly he was scared, scared of Megatron, scared of Lugnut, scared of Megatron's army, scared of the Decepticons. But what could he do? There was nothing to do.

Bruticus had backed off, then run off. He didn't take part in that battle. Lugnut yelled at him. He didn't take part in the next. Megatron came again and tried to use his big words to get him out. But Megatron did not get the answer he had expected.

_"Liar...Megatron liar...use words to...control...then hurt...everyone...so that you...can get...Cybertron for...yourself..."_

The next day Decepticon medics came to deactivate him. He deactivated them.

Ever since then he hadn't obeyed an order. He fought off people at first except the Heavies, the real Heavies-not Lugnut. The Heavy Brigade didn't understand or care about him. But they didn't take kindly to people trying to deactivate one of their own. So he stayed on New Kaon, taking care of himself and watching for anything to get him out of his mess.

And all this went through his processor in a single second as he played his number game.

Blackout shifted, then turned to him.

"Just remembered," he grunted, "Strika say you'll be with Galvatron."

Bruticus looked up at his 'friend'. "What you...mean? Who...Galvatron?"

Blackout conscintrated, "Strika say that you're on Galvatron squad. Ceremony tomorrow."

So they were trying to assign him to a mech? After so long?

"Like Galvatron," Blackout said suddenly, "He tells good jokes. With Cyclonus lots. He's good."

That got his attention. Blackout made friends easily, but few people passed as 'good'.

"Good?...Like who?"

The black mech stared up into the starry sky for a bit before answering.

"Good like Sky-Byte."

Roaring came from the spar. Devastator had pinned Predaking and cheers filled the air along with growls as bets were distibuted and fights broke out concerning cheating and such. Menasor began to giggle and Bruticus watched as Blackout got up and left for Team Charr. He wondered what, "Good like Sky-Byte" meant, but decided that a street fight was not the place to think about it, so he got up and went inside. But not before a simple word unconciously escaped his vocalizer.

"Galvatron."

* * *

><p>AN: An introducation to the characters, I'm going to try to update once a month at least, but we'll see how that turns out. Until next time!<p> 


	2. Take Off

Now, I know I said one chapter per month. This chapter just happened to be ready, so here it is (and it is September). Chapter 3 will appear in October. Oh, and this will probably be my longest chapter for a while. It took me forever to get this written. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Once again, huge shout out to autobot12328 and Darth T-Rex. You guys keep me going with this! But please, reply to me darn emails more than once a month. It makes writing very difficult for me.

* * *

><p><span>Of the First Four Receiving the Artemis<span>

**Timecode: 9501.2.06-09  
><strong>

When Galvatron woke up from stasis, the first thing he noticed was Oilslick's face closer to his own than was comfortable. Of course, upon seeing the green face, he yelped and his head shot up colliding with Oilslick's helmet and leaving a huge crack in the glass. Galvatron proceeded to growl and rubbed the place on his head that had made contact.

"That's one way to get up in the morning," Oilslick groaned taking in the crack in front of his face. "I'll have to make a new one."

"Next time, don't put your face in my face," Galvatron snarled, "Now how long was I out?"

"You've slept into the next megacycle," a voice came from a source beside them.

Cyclonus stood in the doorway, "Come along, General Strika needs to get you debriefed on how to servole the ceremony, we'll be in the bridge."

He left.

Galvatron shot off the berth, and took off leaving Oilslick. It appeared that he was on the Payload, but he knew his way around the ship having spent some time here a couple stellar cycles back. He decided a good flight was in order, before breaching the subject of his...'promotion'.

In four breems, he was in the sky performing all the aerial manoeuvres he could remember.

Captain Galvatron II. It certainly had a ring to it. But why was he being promoted? Every time that the Council of Generals had come to New Kaon, he had done his best to tick the off. Pranks, lewd shouts, crashes, you name it, he'd done it to all of them. Well, except for Strika, Sky-Byte and General Dynobot. Actually, he expected to be demoted. What was the council up to? He tried to remember what Megatron would do to mechs he didn't like. Ignored them mostly. If there was an assassin, he could flush them out with bait. And rebellious mechs were sent to die on suicide missions.

His engine spluttered and he tried to level himself out again. That was it. The Council considered him rebellious. They wanted him to die. And Galvatron couldn't turn down any missions or a promotion. Sure he would laugh in their faces but he would never go over the line. Not as long as Cyclonus lived. Sky-Byte he could leave, Sky-Byte would always be able to find company, but Cyclonus was all alone.

I have to live for my teacher, he pleaded, otherwise there's really nothing keeping me in the world.

Once more, Galvatron returned to the Payload and prayed to Primus that he could stay awake throughout the whole breifing. At least he only had one possession to pack for the trip.

-(\:/)-

The Strangler touched down outside of New Kaon. Shrapnel and his Insecticons didn't like the docks but they did like the bars with high grade. They chatted excitedly and began to unload their cargo as Nightbird stepped outside.

New Kaon hadn't changed at all. It was the same dark planet that Galvatron had conquered all those stellar cycles ago. She had been assigned to the Insecticons on a different colony, and hadn't left them since Cybertron had been lost. Above her, the sky had a bit of activity. A few ships were coming in and she thought she could see a lone flyer out and about. Vaguely, she wondered who her new Captain would be.

The Insecticons threw her two crates filled with all of her possessions next to her. Their laughter could be heard but it seemed far away now. They were teasing her, most likely. Carrying their own crates, the four Insecticons raced into town without looking back at her. That was fine with her though. She had never liked them in the thousands of stellar cycles that they had served together. In fact she had never liked any of the squads that Megatron had assigned her to even back on Cybertron. She wasn't a social person.

Picking the crates up by their servos, Nightbird entered the population. It really hadn't changed much, she decided as she observed the brawling Decepticons and the merchants selling there goods. The only difference was the depression in many of their optics and the scars on many of the mech's armor that opened up. It seemed many of them were dying. She wondered if Megatron was aware. Galvatron certainly would have never let his comrades fall into such a state.

"Lookie," a lewd voice sprouted from somewhere. "A femme."

Nightbird ignored the voice and the many others that joined in.

"Hey babe, you looking for a nice chassis?"

"Come spend your time with me."

"I can be very charming when you get to know me."

"Don't be like that babe."

"I promise to be gentle."

"Let's talk-" a servo reached out and grabbed her right arm.

She acted reflexively. Dropping her possessions to the ground, she rammed her free servo at the joint in the arm holding her captive. The lewd mech let out a howl of pain but Nightbird had shifted to a fighting position, and sent her right elbow into the mech's side. He doubled over and she sent her left knee into his face. The mech lay on his side curled up and making no sound. Nightbird retrieved her supplies and moved on. She remembered exactly where the docks were even if the Insecticons had the annoying habit of parking far away. Galvatron had used to just sit in the docks with his paperwork because the dockmechs would leave him alone instead of the generals that would never dream of such acts.

Luckily for her, the mechs in the street now left her alone. Maybe the demonstration had done the trick. It didn't really matter to her. That was until the ground began to shake. Her head spun around had she dropped crouching close to the ground. Around her, many mechs' helm were spinning in confusion. Was it an earthquake? Turning her head again, she saw that it wasn't.

Five members of the Heavy Brigade were walking by. Nightbird recognized Devastator and Blackout at the head laughing together. Even just one walking about was a surprising sight, but five was unheard of. Then her eyes lay on the center Heavy. He wasn't the largest or the smallest, however he seemed to most nervous. He carried a crate, and there was one of the smaller Heavys on his right and left. It was almost like an escort. Why would he need to be escorted?

When they passed, Nightbird went on her way again, surrounded by the whisperings of the mechs around her voicing the small questions that plagued the back of her mind.

-(\:/)-

Hook took a small transport ship to New Kaon. It was highly undignified but the fastest way to get to New Kaon before the ceremony in which the ship he would be stationed on would be presented. The funny thing was, he didn't know what ship he would be on. Last he checked there were no open ships, and all the ships on Lucifer were either in service or in many pieces.

The pilot spoke through the speakers, "New Kaon's coming up, please be ready to exit the transport."

Hook and a few other engineers gathered up their belongings. Hook had brought four huge crates that would require a couple of trips to unload. Privately he wondered how long his ship yard would last without him.

Not a week, he thought nastily, I'll give them a week, maybe two, until they're begging to have me back.

He didn't really like New Kaon. He never had. True it was known as home to some of the most powerful Decepticons in existence, but the place had always struck him as dirty and vile compared to Lucifer and its machine based society. He liked to drink, but he disliked the brawls that followed. And most of New Kaon's population were soldiers. Grunts that spent their life fighting and gambling on unimportant matters. Mechs addicted to the presence of their master, Megatron.

Now Hook didn't hate Megatron. Megatron was the cause of all of Hook's success. Megatron was autonomic perfection and knew just what to say to get what he wanted. Hook admired his way with words that brought the whole Decepticon population to their knees, even if he didn't like the fighting that he went through. Hook believed that Megatron was a freedom fighter, but had a secret love for fighting. It made him want to punch the mech nearest to him when he received orders for reforging the twin blades.

The ship rocked as announcement was made informing them that they had landed. Hook began to stack his crates and pull them outside. They were being difficult things, and Hook cursed under his breath has he tried to move them out of the cargo bay and onto the conveyer belt. There, his possessions fell over and a mess quickly appeared as crates hit other Cybertronians and curses were heard. He could feel the glares hot on his back but didn't acknowledge them as he collected himself again at the end of the belt. A tall purple mech that was walking by in a drunken state began to pick them up.

"Where are off to?"

Hook was rather surprised by the help, there weren't any friendly mechs in New Kaon last he checked.

"Dock 9," he managed to splutter indignantly.

The mech narrowed his optics and at first Hook wondered if he had said something wrong. Then his optics lit up.

"Ah, that new ship. Haven't seen it around before; it's this way."

The mech took off with Hook's crates and said mech trailed behind. The mech stopped moving suddenly and Hook crashed into his back. The stranger didn't notice.

"Do you know her name? I haven't been able to recognize her. Anyway, I guess I'll see you around."

With that, he disappeared, leaving Hook confused.

Now alone, Hook looked up to see a very familiar ship. So familiar in fact that Hook found himself yelling with all his might at the mech he saw was currently standing outside of it speaking to a grey femme.

"SKY-BYTE!"

The Blue and White mech with his golden faceplate and long white fangs that never truly hid behind lips literally jumped, staring at the charging engineer with a hint of fear in his large red optics. He tried to give his best smile as the femme he had been speaking went aboard the ship.

"Oh, Hook! How very nice to see you again-"

"What the frag is she doing here!" Hook screamed into the Decepticon Admiral's face as he pointed to the ship he was now assigned to. Sky-Byte looked back and forth between the ship and Hook's contorted features.

"Well, you see, the mech being promoted is a good friend of mine and-"

"I don't care about your relationship with my captain! What I want to know is why she's not in your docks on Trivok!"

Sky-Byte blinked stupidly, "You're on her crew?"

"Yes I am, no I don't want to talk about it, and you haven't answered my question!"

"I couldn't keep her! I was given the Trypticon by Lord Megatron and she was just collecting dust on-"

"She's not for some rookie captain Sharkticon," Hook snarled insulting Sky-Byte by using the fact that he looked like a Quintessa Sharkticon. "I designed and built her with your piloting and attacks styles in my processing unit! No other mech can fly her as efficiently as you-"

"I'm fully aware of that Hook, and her new captain was taught piloting by myself so I expect him to be able to use her."

"I don't care! You should have commissioned a ship-"

"I tried to!"

"Obviously not hard enough!"

"Do you know why the Council of Generals are even doing this!"

"Don't care, and-"

"They're trying to get you all killed!"

That shut Hook up. Sky-Byte brought a clawed servo up to his face and a great gust of air whirled through his vents. His optics looked back at Hook's.

"Onslaught's been preparing this for a while now. Ever since Megatron left to find the AllSpark, actually. Anyone who had served their purpose to the Decepticons as much as they possibly could was to be eliminated along with any rebels. Your captain's done a good job of making himself some powerful enemies, and most of the Council voted to send him off. Onslaught had a little harder time getting them to kill you off, but the rest of the squad are major, well, not rebels, but different mechs."

Hook found his voice again, "But why me?"

"Jealously conquers the weak

"It seeks all

"But never defeats."

"Horrible again, Admiral Idiot."

"I felt it was appropriate, and I don't know."

"Next time just answer the question. Now, you never answered my original question."

"Truly, I believe that my friend would have a much better chance of keeping you all alive if he had a good ship. Your thoughts?"

"Probably, but I'm still angry."

"I understand completely, now about your luggage..."

-(\:/)-

Bruticus had woken up early due to Devastator's loud snores. In the Heavy Brigade's barracks, it was hard to get your own quarters due to the sheer size of the occupants. Because of this, most of them recharged together in the rec room. Usually, Bruticus and Menasor would sleep in their private quarters, but last night, Bruticus had felt like sleeping with his brothers. Blackout had spent the night and news of Bruticus' move had spread to the others. Like himself, they had been rather surprised and were cautious about letting him leave with 'Galvatron'. They had even promised to go with him to the ceremony. It made Bruticus feel a little better, even if he did believe they were babying him.

Blackout had gotten up with him and the two went outside watching as the Decepticon colony began to move about. Bruticus could make out crates filled with oil barrels and thought to himself that they were probably for the party that always followed occasions such as these. Really, Decepticons would take any excuse to party. Beside him, Blackout began to stretch and walk off, waving to Bruticus. He was probably going back to Team Chaar before the streets got too busy.

Now alone, Bruticus allowed himself to wonder about the life he was about to leave for. Yesterday he had decided to go despite his long stay on New Kaon simply because the Decepticons on the planet, (though they didn't get close to him) couldn't seem to leave him alone. Everyday, they appeared simply to watch his brothers fight and spar. Everyday, they placed bets on who was fighting and looked at him to snicker. Sometimes a Decepticon would ask him a question just so his friends could laugh at the way he spoke.

Yes, it was finally time to leave. Live on a ship for a while, see different places and spend time with mechs that might not make fun of him. Blackout had said that Galvatron was like Sky-Byte, and Sky-Byte had never been mean to him. Did that mean that Galvatron would be nice to him? Maybe he wouldn't make him fight. But he didn't know who else would be with him on the ship. He hoped they were nice.

Devastator and Menasor emerged behind him, followed closely by Predaking. Devastator passed him an energon cube.

"Bruticus need strength," Devastator announced gravely as he downed his own cube. The other Heavys were copying his example. Bruticus sipped lightly.

"You feel good?" Predaking came up to him and slapped his back.

"I'm...fine," Bruticus told him as Menasor sat down next to him.

"Big day!" Menasor chuckled and crushed his cube. "Where you gonna go?"

"I...don't know," Bruticus brought the energon back up to his face and chugged the rest of the cube, "Maybe...far away."

"Bruticus go far away," Devastator nodded while throwing his empty cube over his back. Bruticus heard something crash, followed by a second crash and he noted to find out what had broken. "Bruticus go far away where Devastator not help him."

Predaking nodded, "You sure you want to go?"

"Yes...I've been...here...too long," the green Heavy confessed as he looked down into his now empty cube, "I need to...go...and see things...different things."

"Promise to call, right?" Menasor put a fist on top of Bruticus' helm. "Don't know how they'll last without your wisdom."

Bruticus hummed at this as Devastator and Predaking shouted angrily at Menasor who was grinning happily. "I'll need...frequencies."

All three Heavys took out datapads and scribbled numbers and names before tossing them into Bruticus' empty cube. This prompted an action out of the youngest Heavy Brigade.

"Need to go...pack things."

As he left his brothers, the remaining Heavy Brigades began to whisper among themselves, but Bruticus didn't think much of it. He entered his old quarters, which were plain and clean except for the berth, which was a mess with objects covering it. He took out a crate and began to carefully place datapads inside. First the number games, then the frequencies, and a couple of story pads that he had been given by Swindle when the merchant had stopped by on certain megacycles. Packing his things up really made the fact that he was leaving sink in. He began to go through holopictures that he had kept over the stellar cycles. Megacycles with his brothers were mostly catalogued, though every now and then Lugnut appeared in a picture. The main differences in all of them were the backgrounds, each a different planet. There was one picture that he really loved, it had all the Heavys in front of their barracks, without Lugnut, together laughing and smiling. It was before he had met Megatron. Before fear had taken the place of happiness.

Placing his final possessions in his crate. Bruticus left his quarters. He wouldn't see them for a long time.

-(\:/)-

Many mechs had gathered outside in the assembly. Most of them Galvatron had never seen before. Slag, he didn't even know his own crew yet. Why they were here though was obvious. They wanted to be part of the party that came afterwards, though Galvatron planned to make himself scarce as soon the ceremony was done. Maybe if he was lucky, his crew would agree to simply take the ship and leave before the party had even begun.

When he had returned to the Payload, Strika had started pounding quite useless information into his processor about speeches that the generals would make, certain oaths he would take, the way that he would hold himself, his addressing of his crew, and most importantly, the presentation of his ship. He had been nearing sensory overload when Blackout had appeared and distracted the femme general long enough for him to store the information. Now the information was driving him up to the ceiling. He couldn't wait to press the delete button and watch it disappear.

General Onslaught stood up and began to speak to the crowd, but Galvatron didn't listen to all the nonsense. Instead he watched the crowd, looking for familiar faceplates or counting the number of oil barrels. Then he estimated the percentage of future drunken mechs. Suddenly his name was mentioned.

"...Galvatron II!"

The crowd roared. Galvatron shot up trying to look dignified as a strode in. General Onslaught took his servo and smiled, but the smile was nasty. The servo was not comfortable but rough and trying to tear off his own. Galvatron felt it best to play along.

He squeezed the other's servo with a great deal of might while giving his most hostile smile. Onslaught's servo began to crunch and the smile evaporated replaced with a glare. Their servos separated and he motioned with his good servo where Galvatron would stand. He moved with the smile still in place as Onslaught went back to address the crowd who knew nothing of what had just transpired.

"Medical officer and engineer, Hook!"

There were many gasps as this mech was introduced and more cheers when he appeared on stage, waving at the crowd that seemed to be going crazy. Galvatron realized that he knew the mech. On his way back to Team Chaar after his flight, he had bumped into a green and black painted mech whom he had helped with his belongings. After shaking Onslaught's servo the mech made his way over, and seemed to recognize him as well.

"So you're the unlucky mech," Hook shook his servo, "Well, I hope you're good because I would like to live another million stellar cycles, Galvatron II."

"Just Galvatron," the violet mech chuckled, "and I guess we'll see."

Hook took a place beside him as the next member was announced. "...Cyberninja Nightbird!"

There was cheering, but no one appeared. Slowly the applause ended and Onslaught did not look happy. He muttered to some of the Decepticons on duty and then returned to the crowd as they disappeared. "It appears this one is shy."

Laughter erupted, but it abruptly stopped when the two Decepticons that had just went inside were thrown back out. Galvatron looked back at the entrance expecting a tall but skinny mech. Instead he saw a petit and thin femme, completely grey with freezing red optics. She looked right at him and her gaze went from hateful to surprise. What had she expected? No, that wasn't surprise, that was shock. Nightbird the Cyberninja appeared to be in a state of shock at seeing him. Part of him wondered why.

Onslaught and the rest of the crowd seemed to be scared, so Galvatron decided to do something. He stepped forward and placed himself in front of the femme who was still looking up at him with those awed optics. He held out his servo.

"Hello there," he tried to act civilized, "I'm Galvatron. You're Nightbird, correct?"

For a moment, the femme did nothing but stare at his servo. Then there was a tightening of her expression, a whirl of vents, and she nodded as she took his servo.

The tense atmosphere disappeared and the cheering was louder than even the time with Hook. Galvatron guided Nightbird to stand beside him and Hook shot her a curious look as Onslaught attempted to regain control of the situation. "Last but most definitely not least: Heavy Brigade Bruticus!"

Not as much as the previous mechs, but the rest of the Heavy Brigades made up for it with their hooting as a huge green and white mech appeared. His servo, (or could one call it a servo? More like a claw but blunt) was too big to shake so the two just nodded coolly to each other. Bruticus took his place behind Galvatron, Nightbird and Hook. He didn't seem interested in speaking at the moment.

"Gentlemechs! I am proud to present the ship that this squad will fly: The Artemis!"

Galvatron turned to see Bruticus was obstructing his view. Without a word, the large mech stood to the side allowing Galvatron to see the ship that had just appeared.

It was the same ship that had been in dock 9. She was a dark Decepticon purple, just as the Nemesis and Trypticon but three times as wide as she was long, flat and in the shape of a triangle. It was smaller than the Payload, but bigger than the Strangler.

"I designed her myself," Hook's voice floated up bringing Galvatron back to reality. The conveyer belt lowered and out jumped Sky-Byte bowing dramatically. Of course Galvatron had to smile at his friend's antics. Judging from the cheering behind him, the crowd loved him to.

Sky-Byte jumped down in front of Galvatron. He straightened and Galvatron readied himself.

"Let it be known that now you are a Captain,

"You will do much for our cause

"But only if you fight for yourself."

"Didn't like that last line, there was no rhyme and too many syllables in the first line," Galvatron told him truthfully.

"You're right, but remember it well my comrade," Sky-Byte held out his claw, "and do take care of Artemis, will you lad?"

"Don't worry about her," Galvatron laughed clutching the claw hard, "worry about me in this idiotic trap that the fools have tried to spring on me."

One of Sky-Byte's optic ridges shot up, "Tried?"

"I know what they're up too," he grinned, "and knowing is the first step in fighting back."

Then he noticed his crew was listening as well. Bruticus was frowning, Nightbird had that awed expression in her optics again and Hook smirked.

"Nice to know you're up for the challenge," Hook chuckled quietly, "Now let's finish the business here up and leave."

-(\:/)-

"And these will be your quarters," Sky-Byte opened a door to reveal a spacious room with a large recharge berth and a desk attached to a monitor to Galvatron. "They're a little bigger than the rest of the quarters in the ship, because this is the captain's cabin, but I really like the monitor. It allows limited access to all the ships functions while the other monitors only allow small things like air temperature changes. Well, I'll leave you to get settled in."

Sky-Byte left the new captain to himself and Galvatron found the room lonely. From his subspace he took out his only possession; a datapad featuring four pictures. The first was of himself and the group of mechs he had onlined with. They were all members of a Decepticon scientist experiment to see if old sparks could be brought back from the well if the conditions were right. For ten megacycles they had all grown as close as brothers. Then they had been shoved out into combat. The last battle on Cybertron, and out of all twenty of them, only Galvatron had survived. They weren't very pleasant memories and Galvatron flipped to the next picture before anything else surfaced.

The next picture was of him with Sky-Byte in a small oil bar at the edge of New Kaon. Galvatron smiled. It had taken a while to warm up to the Admiral, the first time they had met was when Galvatron had been in a brawl outside. After much coaxing his superior had opened Galvatron up and helped him move on. Without Sky-Byte, Galvatron was sure he would have been offlined by the Council of Generals a long time ago. Of course, because Sky-Byte was his only friend, Galvatron had begun to hang around command and bothered most of the high ranking mechs that lived there.

Galvatron went to the next picture. This one featured himself and Cyclonus. No one had really known where the flyer had come from, but Megatron himself had placed him on Team Chaar, so no one asked questions. That didn't mean that anyone had liked him though. Like himself, Cyclonus had liked to escape the colony in favor of the dark of New Kaon. It was there that they had met. They had fought a bit, and then seeing that Cyclonus was a skilled swordsmech, Galvatron had begged to be taught. It had taken a while to convince the mech, (along with seemingly endless stalking) but Strika had gotten sick of him and forced Cyclonus to do something. The end result was that Galvatron began to hang around Team Chaar. If he remembered correctly, Sky-Byte had taken the picture. Of course, Cyclonus wasn't smiling in the picture even if he was. Galvatron had never seen Cyclonus smile.

One more press of a button and Galvatron saw himself with Team Chaar. After forty stellar cycles of training with Cyclonus, General Strika had decided to take Galvatron aboard for a bit. It had been two long stellar cycles, and Galvatron was sure that Strika regretted taking Galvatron anywhere.

Out of subspace Galvatron took out a holopicture that he had just received. Sky-Byte had taken a picture of himself and the new squad. He decided that he liked the picture. He placed both objects on his desk and looked around again. Not much in this room, but he had never stayed in one barrack very long before moving. Maybe this time he would stay.

He left the room and looked down the hallway. On either side there were doors that led to more quarters, and before Sky-Byte had brought him to his own, he had seen Nightbird slip into her own. The others had probably already settled in. Now it was time to leave this hunk of metal. Of course he wondered how they would take to him as a captain. Hook seemed alright with him, and Bruticus seemed okay, but Nightbird's reaction was rather nerve-wracking. What was she expecting of him.

Shaking his head, he travelled quickly to the bridge. What would Cyclonus do? Probably just stare at mechs until they did something. Sky-Byte? He would be his dramatic self throughout the whole ride. Might as well do that.

Stepping onto the Bridge, Galvatron looked at the three seats in front and the captain's seat at the back. Only one of the front seats had been moved aside and in its place sat the green Heavy. He looked up at him and then looked back down at the datapad in his thick digits.

"Um..." Galvatron wasn't sure how to address him, "Bruticus right?"

The Heavy looked up at him again, "...Yes."

Galvatron vented a bit, "You're not going to the party?"

Truthfully, he didn't know if there was a party, but he was willing to bet that there was one. All that oil wouldn't last long during times like this.

Bruticus narrowed his optics, "Aren't you...going?"

"Pft! As if! Most of them are idiots and I don't think they're celebrating my promotion," Galvatron decided to answer honestly. At least Bruticus seemed to be relaxing.

"I've already...said good-bye...to my brothers."

Brothers. The Second Life Project subjects came and invaded Galvatron's processor for a second time that megacycle. He shook his helm before replying.

"I guess I've said my good-byes too." He flopped into the captain's chair and stared at the ceiling.

A deep silence enveloped them. For a few breems they just allowed the thoughts of what they were leaving to pass before their optics.

"Blackout says...you're good...like Sky-Byte."

The new captain tilted his helm to look at Bruticus again, "Really? That's nice of Blackout."

A frown appeared again, "Are you...being...sarcastic?"

"Nope, I've just known Blackout for a while but he's never mentioned you."

The Heavy shrugged, "I'm...different. Megatron...doesn't like me."

"I don't know what Megatron thinks of me. I've only met him once and I remember he looked at me like was expecting something else..."

Suddenly Megatron wasn't Megatron. In Galvatron's mind Nightbird had appeared and was staring at him with those expectant optics, though Megatron had simply waited while Nightbird seemed to be holding onto a desperate hope. They were rather similar. Both wore grey armor and had red optics full of age and experience. Nightbird's armor was simpler, and her weapons were less flashy than Megatron's, but that was beside the point.

"Do you...like Megatron?"

Galvatron looked at Bruticus again. It was such a straightforward question, but a very important one considering the look Bruticus gave him.

"I don't really know what to think of Megatron," he explained carefully looking out the window on the side of the bridge. "Sometimes I hate him, mostly for leaving all of us stranded here with the Council of Generals while he goes looking for the AllSpark. Sometimes I admire the way he took on the Decepticons from my namesake, but I only feel like that when I'm reading battle logs in the Decepticon archives. One time I was scared of him, but the fright quickly turned to curiosity. These days I'm just happy that he stays away because if he was around all the mechs on the Council would tell him what I was up to."

There was a small silence as Bruticus seemed to be processing the data. "I don't...like Megatron. He...scares me."

So the Heavy was scared? Well, Megatron was strong, maybe he was scared of everyone stronger than him. But he was telling, no, confiding in him.

"Well," Galvatron couldn't help but grin, "You're most certainly honest."

Bruticus looked at him directly in the optics and his law clamp rose in what must have been a smile, "You are...too." The green mech tucked his datapad into subspace, ""I think I...know what Blackout...meant now. You're...good...like Sky-Byte."

The captain of the Artemis quickly drew to the conclusion that Bruticus must have some psychic power for within the two seconds that went between the comment and Galvatron's impending question, Hook and Nightbird entered the bridge.

"We have been given the all clear to take the Artemis and leave New Kaon, Captain Galvatron!" Hook announced.

"Sounds like you two have wrapped things up then," Galvatron grinned, "take your places and let's fly far away!"

"To...where?"

"Anywhere that's not here!"

"You do realize that we have a mission to complete," Hook did not look impressed with his new leader. Nightbird wasn't facing him, but Galvatron could see something beginning to form.

"What mission?"

"You weren't listening to General Onslaught; were you?"

Galvatron chuckled nervously, "I might have tuned him out after 'My fellow Decepticons...'"

There was the sound of slapping and Galvatron saw that both Nightbird and Hook had their faces in the palm of a servo.

"Hey, this is my second mission plus the first I'm leading. I didn't spend that much time with Team Chaar."

Hook did not look amused, "When I saw you for the first time on that platform, I thought that maybe we'll get through this. You seemed like the responsible kind-"

"Oh Hook..." he smiled at the compliment.

"But now I see that they're planning on killing us through your inexperience."

"So leave."

The change in the atmosphere of the room was automatic. What had been light was now dense and Galvatron didn't look happy.

"Go on," he pointed behind himself, "The door's right there."

Hook didn't move. The superior attitude that he had just been leaking was gone as well. He looked nervous. "I can't go."

"Well why not?"

"The Council has assigned me here! I can't disobey!"

"So why not?"

"The Decepticons are everything to me!"

"Then they've got you haven't they?" Galvatron stood up further unnerving Hook. Nightbird and Bruticus we're watching curiously. "Do you think I asked to be promoted? That I asked them to give me a ship with a crew of mechs they want to disappear? Well I didn't. I don't want to be the reason that you or Nightbird or Bruticus offline. But the Decepticons are all we have, the Autobots won't take us in, I'm sure that someone has Shockwave looking for us, and we can't exactly go rouge without attracting bounty hunters. Shockwave will know that what we've done and tell the Council of Generals who will pronounce us traitors.

"You see Hook, I live in a world where really, I don't give a slag about anyone else besides the mechs I think are worth something. Now I don't know many mechs that are worth something, but I know enough to keep me online, and I know fewer that make me want to stay in the Decepticons, but I know enough. Obviously the Council of Generals wants me dead because of the millions of times that I've messed with them, and right after the war ended, and when I lost all of my brothers, I would have welcomed such a demise."

For that third time that megacycle, their faces filtered through his mental barriers. He pushed them aside again. "But now I have a reason to live, and I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I will live and not for myself. However I won't play this game of theirs by their rules. I'm going to show them that they can't control me completely, that they'll never get me. The only problem is all of you.

"I won't be able to live for long if we don't all want to live, and if we don't support each other. I'm going to need your help, although I don't think that'll be a problem considering your positions are nearly as desolate as mine!" With that, Galvatron fell back into his chair and proceeded to stare at the ceiling.

The darkness that had unknowingly crept up on the bridge dispersed. Nightbird was looking at him with those awed filled optics again and Bruticus was starting up the ship. Hook began to set coordinates into the ship and slowly the ship came to life. Bruticus took the controls.

Galvatron turned and looked out the window at the dark surface of a planet that he wouldn't see for some time. He turned back to Bruticus grinning wildly.

"Hit it!"

Bruticus began to move them, slowly off the ground. The ship was hovering, then rising.

"Are you sure Bruticus at the controls is such a good idea?" Hook hollered.

"Don't worry," Galvatron laughed, "I trust him much more than I trust you!"

Then there was acceleration. The Artemis shot through New Kaon's atmosphere like an arrow in the air. On the ground, many Decepticons pointed out the ship. Cyclonus himself looked up and his optics trailed her assent until his sensors could no longer pick up her signal.

"May we meet again," he whispered. None of Team Chaar with whom he stood next to noticed what he was saying. "Galvatron II..."

* * *

><p>...And done! See you guys back in November with our very first action scene! (If Darth T-Rex ever replies...)<p> 


	3. Polrise Part 1

It's October! New Chapter! I have a lot of things to do this year, so I'm not sure if I can keep the story on a nice smooth path, but I will do my best. More shout outs to autobot12328 and Darth T-Rex along with all the people that reviewed, and to all of my readers. Seeing hits and good reviews really puts me in a writing mood.

On another topic, Transformers Prime's season finale part one is officially out. I have yet to watch it though.

Finally, yesterday, I ended up doing a bit of research on Nightbird because I wanted to know if she was in any series that wasn't G1. I learned that she has shock shuriken, beam swords, numchucks, magnetic abitiles that let her walk on walls, and she can turn invisible. I'd like to think that despite not knowing that she had half of that stuff, I've covered most of it.

Anyway, Enjoy!

* * *

><p><span>Of the First Mission that Galvatron II Leads<span>

**Timecode: 9501.2.07**

"Alright," the newly appointed captain of the Artemis boomed, "Let the meeting regarding the first mission begin! Let's start with Hook and the primary objectives."

The green and black medical officer stood up and cleared his throat, "According to General Onslaught, we are to attack the Autobot outpost at Polrise 8. Apparently the Autobots there are some of the strongest we've seen that aren't in the Elite Guard. They're too close to Decepticon territory for comfort."

Nightbird frowned but remained silent as Hook began to bring up the stats of different Autobots that were, according to Shockwave, posted on Polrise 8.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Galvatron asked clearly not understanding the meaning of 'too close'.

Hook rolled his optics, "We get rid of them."

"I gathered that much, but do the give a specific way to do this?"

Galvatron was up to something, though only one mech seemed to get it, "Do we...have to...kill them?"

Nightbird shrugged, it was just another couple dead Autobots to her. Galvatron didn't seem too happy with the method of disposition.

"What were the exact words Hook, can you remember?"

"Of course I can remember! Are you doubting me?"

"Do you seriously want me to answer that question?"

"He said, 'Their first test as proof of themselves shall be to remove a growing Autobot threat on Polrise 8.'"

"Are you sure that's all he said?"

"Of course there was more captain! You just weren't listening."

The purple mech's optics lit up in a strange light and Nightbird felt herself shiver as a grin spread on his faceplate. Did this mech know just how alike he was to his namesake? No, probably not considering the idiocy that he had been demonstrating.

"Some of us have better things to do than listen to nonsense spouting from a certain general's vocals. Anyway, when will we be arriving?"

"Two, maybe three cycles tops."

"Well then, I'm going to refuel and recharge."

"Wait, we haven't even discussed the Autobots!"

Galvatron was already gone.

Hook began to curse and go through information that he wanted to know. Bruticus was on his datapad again, digits clicking away at something or other. Nightbird decided to look through the Autobots. They all looked the part of tough bots, but other than that, Shockwaves profiles of them weren't very impressive. Maybe Galvatron had already known what they were going to be and decided that they didn't need much preparation.

Satisfied with herself, she left the bridge and headed for her own quarters leaving Hook and Bruticus to do there own things. She was about to enter her quarters when she noticed the presence of a large mech behind her.

Her first reaction was to lash out, so she did only to find her foot in the face of Galvatron. He hit the ground hard, but laughed.

"What a nasty kick you got there!" He began to stand up and brush himself off. Nightbird watched his every move carefully. He didn't know it, but she had greeted the original Galvatron in a similar manner. The resemblances only seemed to grow between the two.

"Do you ever talk?" he asked in a curious manner. Nightbird felt her spark beat faster. She could speak to him right now and break her silence. But it had been millions of stellar cycles since she had, her last words had been with the original Galvatron right before Megatron had confronted him.

Nightbird shook her head. Galvatron sighed, "Slag it. Well that'll make things difficult."

She crossed her arms and glared at him trying to get him to move on. He shrugged and was about enter his quarters when he turned back to her.

"I've been meaning to ask in private, but why do you look at me like that?"

It was a simple question. To Nightbird there was no simple answer. She entered her quarters and closed the door quickly without replying. Locking her door, she glanced around at her new living space. She had quite a few things from cyberninja training equipment to datapads filled with cyberninja history and private recollections about times since before the war. She decided to write a new entry and sat down turning on her monitor.

-(\:/)-

Polrise 8 was coming into the Artemis' sensors when Galvatron entered the bridge again. Hook, Nightbird and Bruticus were all at there respective stations and Galvatron flopped into the captains chair. His recharge had been a bit fitful, but overall he couldn't complain. He wasn't really interested in killing the Autobots that were coming up. No one besides himself knew it, but he was rather proud of the fact that he had never taken a bot's life on the battlefield or in private.

"Polrise 8...on screen," Bruticus spoke up, and the moon of a gas giant appeared. The rock was light blue, most likely reflecting the gas giant's color making the orange Autobot space bridge stick out.

Galvatron rubbed his servos together. "Alright, now I'm going in take care of this, anyone interested in coming?"

Bruticus began to fidget and Nightbird looked bored but didn't stand up. Hook just chuckled, "I'd like to see you in action first sir."

"Suit yourselves, but if I die, you all have a smaller chance of survival," he pointed out while getting up and heading back out. In the cargo bay, Galvatron hit the button to open the door and he looked out to see seven burley Autobots grimacing. Drawing his twin energy swords, he leapt out and landed on the metal surface directly in front of them. One Autobot drew out an energy mace and twirled it expertly.

"Surrender Decepticon!" he snarled. Galvatron just chuckled.

"I think we both know that won't happen, but before we begin, I have to ask, how many pairs of stasis do you all have together?"

The Autobots seemed surprised by this question and an orange answered, "We have fifteen pairs, why?"

Instead of answering, Galvatron sprung into action.

His feet sprung into the air and his heel boosters roared to life as he shot towards the seven Autobots. He dodged the one with the mace in favor of kneeing the brown mech behind him. As the knee made contact, he cut his boosters and barrel rolled into another Autobot as the brown one fell to the ground. Unlike the first, this Autobot brought his fists together and attempted to bring them down on his helm. He shot his hand up to grab said fists and used the momentum to fling him at the brown one. Both landed in a pile and tried to get up, but Galvatron's attention was taken as to Autobots charged from either side of him roaring. Once again he turned on his heel boosters and flew into the sky watching as the two crashed. He chuckled at the sight but something pierced his left side and he raised a hand to feel two energy arrows in his side. Turning around he saw a red mech with flames and an energy bow load to more arrows and shoot them. Seeing them coming this time Galvatron raised one of his swords to deflect the shots as his other hand removed the arrows. All the Autobots were getting back up except for the brown mech who was seemed to have entered stasis. Galvatron's optics searched until they landed on what he was looking for: stasis cuffs. If he could get his hands on them, then the fight would be much cleaner. Even better, he wouldn't have to offline these idiots.

"Hot Rod," the blue mech with the mace snarled, "shoot!"

'Hot Rod' let another two arrows fly from the bow. Galvatron turned off his boosters and fell behind a large rock for cover. He was about to make a dash for the cuffs when the ground rumbled.

"More of them?" a voice shouted that was quickly followed by some pained yelps. Galvatron peeked from over the rock to see to his surprise that Bruticus was holding down two of the Autobots in his clawed servos while Nightbird was currently going head to head with four Autobots, though she seemed to be holding back. Her optics met his for a split second.

Show us.

Those two words entered his processor and rang throughout him. He didn't question them, instead he made a beeline for the stasis cuffs. One of the Autobots said something he didn't catch, then the sound of two arrows caught his audios. He placed both hands on the crate holding the cuffs, pushed himself off the ground, dodging the arrows, and doing a cartwheel behind another rock. He subspaced all the cuffs but three pairs then jumped back into action.

Nightbird lashing out and weaved between the Autobots when he arrived back. Galvatron proceeded to punch one of the Autobots which caused the victim to fly all the way to Bruticus who was still holding down the two struggling Autobots. Nightbird revealed a couple of shuriken and flung them at the currently charging Autobot. When they lodged themselves into mechs armor, they let out a shock that caused the mech to fall into stasis. She drew to small energy katanas and deflected more of Hot Rod's arrows.

Galvatron was fighting the Autobot with the mace. He had to use his swords to deflect the mace. Each time it came down, Galvatron felt like his sword would break but all that time sparring with Cyclonus hadn't been for nothing. Holes in the Autobots defense became visible. Galvatron struck the chain causing the ball to wrap around his sword. Dropping the other one, he planted his fist into the Autobot's stomach. The Autobot let out a gasp and doubled over, giving Galvatron enough time to slap on stasis cuffs. Out of the corner of his optics he saw that the brown mech he had taken out in the beginning was coming out of stasis. He ran over and put the stasis cuffs on him as well. He noticed then that he was being watched by Bruticus and the Autobots in his grasp. He began to place stasis cuffs on all of the Autobots that had been immobilized. Nightbird had nearly finished with her Autobot and Galvatron, unsure whether she would try to kill or not, move in and slapped stasis cuffs on him from behind.

Nightbird looked at him with shock and maybe anger, he couldn't tell. He simply dragged the Autobot with the others and looked toward Bruticus.

"You aren't...going to...kill them?" Bruticus asked. He didn't seem angry, just surprised and maybe curious.

He grinned at the Heavy, "I currently have a clean kill count, I would like it to stay that way. Now, how are we going to cuff these two?"

Bruticus answered by picking them both up, ignoring the squabble that they both began to make, and hit there helms together. Both went silent and Bruticus dropped them so that Galvatron could use more stasis cuffs.

By then Nightbird had walked over while dragging she Autobot and wasn't looking at Galvatron with that expectant look anymore. She was mirroring Bruticus' curious look. When Galvatron met her optics, she quickly looked away and threw the red mech with the others.

The Artemis landed nearby drawing all of their attentions. Hook appeared and walked over to them looking at the Autobots before beginning to pick up all the weapons scattered around the place.

"What are you going to do with us?" the blue mech that had previously had the mace mumbled. Galvatron cocked his head to the side.

"Don't know yet," he shrugged, "Our superiors would probably have us kill you, so we can't take you with us, and we can't just leave you here, that's just a half job."

"Can't we just kill them," Hook drawled angrily while laying out the weapons that the Autobots had dropped in an order that seemed to make sense to him.

The purple mech scowled, "I am not killing them, that's just what the Council of Generals would want. Plus I'm not fond of killing."

Hook looked up and incredulously, "Fond of killing? With the way that you took them on before Nightbird and Bruticus showed up to save your sorry aft, I'd say something else! Where's that blood thirsty mech for the bridge?"

"Blood thirsty? I only mentioned taking care of them, not killing."

"Your decision affects us all! We have to make them disappear!"

"I'm open to anything that isn't a dead mech."

"We can't just drop them off at Cybertron!"

"We," Bruticus began to speak drawing the two arguing mechs attention, "...have a...space bridge."

Nightbird nodded and Galvatron grinned, "Bruticus, despite all appearances, you are a genius!"

Hot Rod looked up in alarm, "Wait, what?"

"Hook! Do you know how to work a space bridge?"

The green mech shifted, "Of course I can!"

"Great! We'll transwarp these seven to Cybertron then destroy the space bridge! Problem solved, mission accomplished!"

The Autobots that were online stared in disbelief, "Really?"

"Of course!" Galvatron laughed picking up a couple and throwing them over his shoulders. Nightbird and Bruticus followed his example, but Hook attached his crane to the remaining Autobots, transformed then drove after them.

The Autobot over his shoulder began to whisper, "Why are you against offlining; if you don't mind me asking."

"I don't mind," Galvatron chuckled, "I just think that killing's a waste. There's nothing really gained, though I probably could kill if I wanted to. You would have to make me hate you enough."

"And you don't hate us?"

"Nope!"

The Autobot who had asked all the questions-it was Hot Rod, right?- fell silent and seemed to be thinking.

"Keep in mind," Galvatron continued, "Not all Decepticons are like me. If anyone else had been sent here, you'd probably be dead."

"Thanks for the sidenote..."

"No problem! Now, Hook! Get this thing working!"

The crane grumbled as he transformed back to his robot form and began to work the consul. "Space bridging isn't so easy, you need another one to connect to, and a person waiting at the other side."

"I think I can get you that."

Galvatron threw his Autobots to the ground, and drew his sword to free Hot Rod, "Do us a favor and get your friends out of here, will you?"

Hot Rod looked around in shock at the Decepticons. He slowly stood up, probably aware of the glare Nightbird was shooting at him, and made his way to the controls. Hook stepped aside.

The Autobot turned to them, "Does it have to be Cybertron?"

"I have two requirements," Galvatron began to stroke his chin in mock thought, "One, you transwarp the frag out of here and two, you transwarp to an Autobot settlement."

He nodded and spoke into his commlink, "Hey, Landmine, this is Hot Rod. Yeah, I know I just called a megacycle ago, but I forgot something. Can you open a space bridge so I can pick it up? Thanks buddy...No! I don't want you to tell!"

Bruticus turned to Galvatron, "He's...a good...Autobot."

The space bridge began to power up and Galvatron walked over to Hot Rod, "No hard feelings," he mumbled as he snapped the stasis cuffs back on, "this is just more realistic."

Nightbird was the first to throw her bots into the glowing blue sphere. Bruticus tossed next, and both he and Nightbird threw one of Hook's as he went to plunder the outpost. Galvatron flew up and threw the first of his Autobots in, then returned for Hot Rod.

"By the way," he smiled, "Name's Galvatron, let's not meet again."

As Hot Rod disappeared, a smile appeared on his faceplate. And then he was gone.

-(\:/)-

So the Autobot outpost wasn't the biggest hit in the galaxy, but Hook knew quite a bit out scavenging. He wasn't the best at it, that was Scavenger who was a strange neutral true to his name. About a million stellar cycles back the fellow had turned up on Lucifer and had taught Hook the art of retrieving scrap for profit. The best deals were made by Swindle, though you had to be a hard bargainer to keep up with the salesmech. Luckily, Hook had been doing this for a while now, for it had been pointed out to him by a Decepticon named Dead End that if you preferred to sit on the sides it was best to have a couple back up plans in case your profession was on the line.

The first that Hook had gotten out of the Autobots were their weapons. He hadn't had enough time to swipe their mods, (Galvatron had disposed of them to quickly) but their weapons were state of the art Autobot engineering. The mace would look good on any Decepticon and Hook was sure that he could squeeze at least 500,000 credits out of Swindle, maybe more if the arms dealer was in a good mood, though getting him in a good mood required buying him three or for high grade oils. Looking inside the outpost, he had found more weapons (big surprise), lots of low grade oil, and many datapads that held information he already knew. All but the oil could be sold, because a good merchant never sells low grade oil. The datapads could be sold to some uneducated moron and weapons meant a round with Swindle. A good find, and he hadn't even hacked the computers yet.

Hook wasn't as good with computers as one might consider. True, he was an engineer, and probably the best there was, however that meant that his time spent on a computer excluding computer schematics was limited. In the end, he had basic hacking abilities, and considering the rest of the crew where fighters, his computer skills were probably the best on the ship.

While Hook began to fire up the consul, he couldn't help but hear Galvatron's voice ringing out.

"Everybody, clear out!"

Curious, he decided to peak out the window to see many of the charges that had previously occupied the Artemis' storage area were covering the space bridge.

"Fire in the hole!"

Needless to say, the resulting explosion was rather impressive.

White flooded Hooks optics, quickly followed by yellow, orange, then red and grey smoke from the previously orange space bridge towers. The towers themselves had disappeared, there was only the base left, and it was in flames.

The monitor began to let out a series of beeps and Hook turned to see Bruticus at the consul. His huge blunt digits hit the keyboard in rapid succession as his red eyes stared at the screen narrowed in concentration.

"And just what are you doing?" Hook couldn't help but shout incredulously at the Heavy. He didn't expect an answer.

"I'm...entering the...Autobot...database."

"You can do that?"

"Autobot...Security same...numbers as on...number games."

The consul let out a welcome tone and Bruticus took a step back, looking towards Hook and gesturing at it before leaving. For a moment, Hook stood in slight shock, but he pulled himself together making a small note to figure out just how the Heavy Brigade could hack into an Autobot database.

There wasn't much data that Shockwave hadn't gathered, but there were some journals from the Autobot's stationed and it looked like there had been something here at one point. One record showed something about an organic creature. Thinking about organics made Hook shiver. Only fifteen stellar cycles ago, he had met Blackarachnia, a technorganic. It hadn't been a pleasant experience. In any event, he began to record all the information onto a disk and left to find something to keep himself busy.

Returning to the place where he had begun to sort out his findings, he found Galvatron immersed in the datapads.

"Put those back," he snarled, "It's like you've never heard of them."

Galvatron looked up at him with an innocent gape, "What's a Liege Maximo?"

That caused Hook to start spitting terribly, "What's a- don't give me that slag! Everyone's heard of Liege Maximo once in their life cycle! How can this be the first time you've heard of Liege Maximo?"

These comments caused Galvatron to frown, "Um... I don't know. No one ever mentioned it."

"At least tell me you've heard of Primus."

"Isn't that a curse?"

Hook's hand met him face with a slap, "He's the creator of Cybertron, of Cybertronians..."

"Oh, so that's how Cybertron was made?"

"How can this seriously be the first time you've heard of this?"

"I guess no one bothered to mention it back on New Kaon."

"I also guess that your boot camp didn't have creation datapads."

"Oh, I wasn't in a boot camp."

"Everyone goes to boot camp! Even Autobots!"

"I lived in a science lab, does that count?"

"Primus, I see now why I'm here, to educate this idiot!"

"Great! When do I start?"

"After we move this stuff to the Artemis, and while we're at it, call Bruticus or someone to help transport this oil."

-(\:/)-

The first thing that Bruticus did when he returned to the docked Artemis is use the monitor to contact the Heavy Brigade. At first no one answered, but calls weren't very common so he didn't blame his brothers for not picking answering. After it rang for two whole minutes, Menasor's face appeared on the screen.

"I-Bruticus!"

"Hello-"

"Bruticus is on?"

"Move Menasor, I want to see."

"Devastator make you all move now!"

The white and green giant chuckled as his brothers all tried to get onto the screen.

"Bruticus, what's going on?"

"Are you about to fight?"

"Bruticus smash Autobots for Devastator!"

"No one cares what you think Devs."

"My..." they all went silent when he began to speak, "team... already beat...the Autobots...that were here."

As soon as the word 'Autobots' passed out of his vocals, Predaking bashed Devastator on the back of the helm and Blackout tackled Menasor with what appeared to be a hug, though the unfortunate Heavy disappeared from sight shortly followed by a large bang that indicated he had met the ground.

"Congrats," Predaking grinned excitedly. Devastator started grumbling and Bruticus heard Menasor swearing.

"Thank...you."

"Are they going to party?" Devastator, recovered to ask.

"I...don't know," Bruticus confessed and turned to Blackout, "Does...Cyclonus...party?"

The black heavy shook his head, "Cyclonus isn't normal."

At that, Bruticus couldn't help but chuckle, "Galvatron...isn't normal...either."

All the Heavy mechs laughed but not for the reason that Bruticus was laughing.

"Nice to have Bruticus back!" Devastator announced, "Kick lots of Autobot tail!"

"I'll...call back...soon..." Bruticus promised before the screen went black. It was nice to talk to his brothers, but they were very single minded. Still, Galvatron's 'no kill' policy was nice. Galvatron wasn't good like Sky-Byte, he was in an entirely different category of good. Somewhere between Decepticon good and Primus good.

Nice. That was the word he was looking for. But not Decepticon nice or Autobot nice. Primus nice. Primus good. Primus loved.

Bruticus shook his head. Where had the last one come from?

-(\:/)-

Far from Polrise 8, a grey metallic world orbited a star. Lights shined through its atmosphere and life sparkled from the cities to the long energon farms. The inhabitants were going about their business cheerfully and without complaint.

This was Cybertron, home to most Cybertronians and dominated by the Autobots.

Unlike their Decepticon cousins, the Autobot's lives were prosperous and happy without violence other than the occasional criminal that would be caught by the local police force. Each and every one of them had a red badge letting you know that they were Autobots.

Two mechs ducked and weaved through the busy crowds as they made their way through one such city. They were alike in their boxy appearance though one was completely black while the other was pure white. On their chests, Autobot badges shown out and their bright blue optics glowed in anticipation.

Today, they began bootcamp. Today, they would receive their names. Today, their careers as Elite Guard warriors would be a step closer.

It was most bots young dreams to join the Elite Guard and become strong enough to bear wings on their badges so that they could fight the evil Decepticons. These two were no different, but in fact they were. One could tell from their synchronized movements that they were twins. Products of a split protoform. Sometimes even, a split spark.

The bootcamps were in the middle of the city, close to Fortress Maximus, the Elite Guard citadel. Neither of them had ever been this close before. They both neared the Elite Guard bot in front of the gate.

"Excuse us," the white bot called drawing the guard's attention. The guard went stiff, probably because both the white and black mech were rather tall for Autobots, even if twins were supposed to be naturally smaller than most mechs.

"We're here for bootcamp," the black mech told him as they both came up and held out their registration cards. The guard took out a scanner and proceeded to zap both the cards. Seeing the results, he nodded.

"Go to your left, the bootcamp group C-3 will be on your right," he told them as the door opened.

"Thank you," the twins said at the same time and walked through the door. They didn't speak to each other, but there was no need. They already knew what the other was thinking and knew what would be said if they voiced their questions. So they passed by the other bootcamps occupied by Autobots large and small of all different colors doing transform ups and other such exercises without a word.

The barracks of group C-3 were rather run down compared to the rest of the camps. All the other camps had a different color paint to identify grounds, but the blue paint that covered everything in the twin's sight was old and peeling in various spots. There were many spilled energon stains on the ground along with oil that told both mechs that this place hadn't been cleaned in a while. There were even some burn marks. The twins turned to each other at the same time to confirm that the other was with them and that they wouldn't be alone in what ever they were getting themselves into. At the same time, they nodded, turned back to the building and headed in.

There were some colorful mechs that were outside with oil cans and laughing in one of the buildings, and the twins searched looking for some sort of commanding officer. They resorted to speaking to the other mechs.

"Excuse us," the white mech spoke up startling some of the bots

"But do you know who's in charge?" the black mech completed.

For a few moments, the others just stared. Then a light blue bot with bright yellow stripes piped up.

"We haven't seen the bot, but rumor has it that the C-3 group-"

"What do you think you mechs are trying to pull!"

They all jumped up as a large orange bot ran over.

"Get out! All of ya! Shoo!"

The mechs all lined up next to the twins, forgetting about their drinks. Seeing this, the orange mech paused before he resumed shouting.

"Straight line mechs. Welcome to Bootcamp grease stains. Designation Zeta Minor. Now I don't care about where you came from or where you're headed. 'Cause in the end, we all end up in the same scrap heaps. Some of you might make it to where you're going, but I don't expect you to. In fact, you'll never see each other again. I hope you like drills 'cause we'll be doing them a lot here. Starting with you!"

Zeta Minor pointed to a red mech in front of him. "What you got going, punk?"

The red bot straightened and looked nervous. "Sir?"

"Mod, fraggit! What's your mod?"

"Oh!" the red mech's optics brightened considerably at this. He transformed into a red car and shot off at high speeds that the twins had never been able to reach. The minor seemed to be timing him around a small track in the training grounds. When the red mech returned, transformed, and got back in line, Zeta didn't seem interested.

"Nice track time, _Chase_, but you'll need to do a lot better than that."

The Minor spun onto the next mech in line, "And you, kid?"

The blue and black mech didn't speak. He suddenly vanished, and the twins along with the other mechs tried to find him, only to hear his voice right where he had been.

"How is this, sir?"

"Hm..." the Minor seemed impressed despite himself, "Looks like we're getting somewhere, _Mirage_."

Next in line was a large yellow mech. Zeta didn't give any slack, "Well clog? Get to it!"

The yellow mech threw some stuff that the twins couldn't see. The Minor wasn't happy, "That's it?"

"Wait for it."

A large explosion followed by another two appeared on both viz-scanners and boomed in the twin's audios. Zeta shrugged.

"We'll see, _Landmine_, we'll see."

Zeta rounded on the light blue bot that had helped the twins out earlier, "You've got expectations kid."

"Sir," the striped mech began, "My mod is a tracking device. It picks up the signature of any mech, and said mech can not escape."

"Is that right?" the orange Minor laid thick sarcasm.

"Any target sir!"

"All right then," Zeta sneered, "Mirage, run."

The newly named Mirage disappeared and the light blue mech simply stood there. After a few breems, his optics lit up and he transformed into his alternate mode. "Can you give me a servo Chase?"

Chase transformed and the two cars took off. A breem later both returned with Mirage.

The Minor grumbled, "Interesting _Searchlight_, if you want to join the local police." His attention turned to the twins, who were last. He gestured to the white mech. "Can you do anything, bright bot?"

The white mech turned to his brother in shock then back, "Well, you see-"

"Shut it and drive, crank case!"

This caused him to transform and drive through a nearby obstacle course. He emerged quickly and unscathed.

"Good run, _Runabout_," Zeta Minor sighed and turned to the black twin. "You the same, kid?"

"We're twins sir," the black mech said quickly so as to not be interrupted as his brother returned to his place in line.

"Then you can do the same," he snarled and pointed at the obstacle course.

The black mech looked at the obstacle course and let out a huge vent of air. He ran and transformed at the same time, but unlike his brother, who had manoeuvred away from said obstacles, he crashed right through them. He reappeared in front of the others transforming and groaning as he collapsed in his brother's arms. Zeta Minor looked liked he was going to explode as the landmines had.

"Do you know how hard in is to replace all that equipment!"

Runabout answered for his brother, "We can fix it-"

"Like slag you can! All of you, transform ups! Even you, _Runamuck_!"

It was thus that the twin Autobots, Runamuck and Runabout, began their bootcamp training.

* * *

><p>Runabout and Runamuck won't return for a long time. But they're very important later on, so I wanted to introduce them now before it was too late. In any event, thanks for reading again!<p> 


	4. Polrise Part 2

To say that this chapter is early would be true. It also means that the next chapter might be a bit late depending on circumstances. Here's to the end of Transformers Prime season 1 with the ending that blew my mind.

Once again thank you so much Darth T-Rex and Autobot12328, you guys are life savers.

Also, if anyone can guess who the 'beast' is, I give out imaginary energon. Darth T-Rex already got it.

* * *

><p><span>In which the 'Beast of Polrise 8' is encountered<span>

**Timecode: 9501.2.11**

Polrise 8, a little, light blue rock next to a gas giant in the middle of Decepticon territory. Well, at least it was prettier than New Kaon.

The newly instated captain of the Artemis, Galvatron, sat outside of the old Autobot barracks that they had taken four megacycles ago while watching the gas giant's swirling blue mists move across the surface at such a speed that they could be viewed through the atmosphere. He imagined that the forces on the planet must be powerful, so powerful in fact that he probably couldn't survive them. Cyclonus might have been able too, but he wouldn't bother trying if there was nothing in it. Galvatron was one of the better fliers in the Decepticon army, though not the best.

In the last four megacycles, nothing much had happened. He had reported the missions success to that idiot General Onslaught who hadn't looked too happy to see him, though the general had ground his dental and told him that he and his team were to remain at the outpost and repel any Autobot attempts to regain Polrise 8, then await further orders. Personally, Galvatron had come to the conclusion that Onslaught was trying to improvise a new scheme to kill them all off.

His engineer and medical officer, Hook, had pointed out in the previous megacycle during a fuel up with all of the crew present that the Autobots had chose to put their outpost here, but that there had been no real point to it. No energon to harvest, no oil to drill, and no strategic advantage either; actually, due to the fact of how deep it was in Decepticon territory, there seemed to be a rather large disadvantage.

"They were probably defending the space bridge," Galvatron had pointed to a pillar which was all that remained of the Autobot space bridge that he had ordered destroyed. "As far as I've seen, Autobots are very protective of us getting our hands on their success secrets. Most likely they were afraid that we would seize it and try to reverse engineer the thing."

"We'll never get that chance," Hook had spat angrily, "if someone hadn't blown up the thing!"

"Hey," the young Decepticon had snapped, "I wasn't about to let the Autobots send in reinforcements through it. On one hand we wouldn't need to reverse the thing if Shockwave was doing his job."

Upon saying this, Hook had spluttered in an amusing fashion asking just how the purple Decepticon might have come across such classified information. The poor mech had gotten even worse when he learned that both Bruticus and Nightbird had known all about the Decepticon double agent as well. It took seven whole breems for him to recover from the shock, and once he had, he began to go on about some organic beast that he had discovered about in the Autobot database. Galvatron and the others were already leaving at this point though, so it didn't make any difference to him, and he doubted that the others had listened.

Strictly speaking, Galvatron wasn't supposed to be sitting out there just watching the planet below. During Hook's raid of the Autobot outpost, it had been discovered quite accidentally that he was ignorant. Hook had given him a number of datapads that were filled with what Hook believed was 'basic information to any Cybertronian' and at that moment, he theoretically was doing the work Hook had assigned him. Really, the only subjects that he didn't grasp were history and builders calculations. It wasn't his fault though that the Decepticons that had been in charge of his first life cycles had seen fit to only give him the basic history of the Decepticon Empire along with some of the more personal secrets of the original Galvatron. As for the rest of his subjects, Sky-Byte and Cyclonus had taught him well.

Another thing that they had discussed was their squad name. If a Decepticon squad survived their first mission, the crew was allowed to select a Team name for themselves, such as Team Chaar, which was named after the planet that they had risen from. He didn't know what his team would end up being called, though they had to shape up at start working like a team first.

Underneath his pedes, Galvatron felt the ground lurch completely to the side. He fell from his seat on the rock and backwards on his helm. He cursed as he sat back up and scanned his surroundings for what might have caused the phenomenon. The sensors indicated that there was nothing wrong. Maybe he was imagining it. Still, it was about time to head back.

The moment that Galvatron had picked up his datapads, the ground decided to give another lurch. This time he fell forward and the aftershock lasted much longer. When everything was quiet again, he slowly rose to his feet only to find that right in front of him was a crack the size of Bruticus. Galvatron shot off the ground and back towards the Artemis.

"Hook!" he yelled through the commlink in a small panic.

"Well you don't need to shout," Hook answered in a klik. "My audio receptors are functioning at full capacity. So what is it this time?"

"How stable would you call Polrise 8?"

"How stable? That's a bit off subject, but it's probably as stable as any satellite of this kind can get. Why?"

"I would've thought that you would have felt something as obvious as the lurch."

"Again, very off topic. Of course I felt Bruticus, who wouldn't have?"

"I'm not talking about Bruticus! I meant the quake that made a huge slagging crack in the fragging satellite! Wait, what's this about Bruticus?"

"Never mind. Wait, what's this about a crack?"

"It is in the fragging ground outside. Sending its coordinates now."

"I see...and you were there for what purpose?"

"I don't think that's your concern, just get someone to come and look at this with me okay?"

Galvatron transformed and sat on the conveyor belt. Two breems later, Bruticus appeared.

"Yo, Bruticus. Where's Hook?"

"Hook...wanted me to...tell you that...he wants to...launch the Artemis."

"Really?" Galvatron walked into the ship and Bruticus began to close the docking bay. "Did he happen to mention why?"

"Nope...Sorry."

"It's fine," the captain waved it off, "Hook probably thinks that you'd be too stupid to understand."

They began to walk towards the bridge.

"You...don't think that...I'm stupid?"

"I think that you just sound stupid, but there's a lot going on up here," he tapped his head and grinned at Bruticus, "and in here," he tapped Bruticus' chest where the spark chamber was located.

The door to the bridge opened and Galvatron saw both Nightbird and Hook at their stations. As it always seemed to be, Nightbird's optics shot open and watched him expectantly, in the last cycles though, their intensity of her gaze had decreased. Galvatron was still trying to decide whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Captain," Hook used his business vocabulary, but there was a sarcastic tone to his voice, "if the satellite is becoming as unstable as you claim to have seen" (meaning that he didn't really believe him) "I would like to leave the Artemis in orbit with Bruticus while Nightbird joins us in your investigation."

"Sure..." Galvatron stood behind his seat as Bruticus moved to the controls, "let's fly."

The crew began to ready the ship for launch when the ground gave a third lurch and Galvatron sat in his seat. He turned to stare at Hook, who, with Nightbird, was staring at Bruticus.

"That...wasn't me."

"What?" Galvatron turned his gaze to the Heavy, "you know what? Don't tell now. Tell me later when this mess has been dealt with."

The Artemis began to rise off the ground and slowly proceed through the atmosphere. Bruticus seemed to know very well what he was doing until he tried to put her in orbit. Galvatron began to access commands from his seat, steadying her until one of Nightbird's sensors flared and she nodded to him indication that they had achieved orbit. He nodded back.

"Would you mind staying to watch the ship Bruticus?"

"...Nope."

"Alright, Nightbird, Hook, you two ready to go?"

The green mech turned to him in slight surprise, "Is the shuttle fuelled?"

"Who said anything about a shuttle?"

-(\:/)-

A joor later, Nightbird was on the satellite scouting the surface with that dim-witted engineer Hook, and her new captain, Galvatron II. She had decided on the ride down that although Galvatron II was an exceptional pilot, he was also oblivious to passengers.

Four megacycles ago, she had watched the young captain take on the Autobots. He had attacked with the ability to kill them all in kliks, the skilled optics were certainly there. Instead, they were all left alive with Galvatron inflicting just enough damage to send them into stasis lock. There was a sense of control in his moves that had impressed her, though she did not know in what way Bruticus had been convinced to leave with her to aid him. Galvatron had not had the strength to fight them all without killing them, that much had been certain to her. Bruticus' rising had snapped her out of her musing then and spurred her into action. Hook hadn't understood anything, which had led her to believe that he was an idiot.

When Galvatron II had spoke of not killing, Nightbird had seen the first real different between him and his namesake. Her true leader would have offlined them the moment it became clear to him that the Autobots held no information worth knowing, the second seemed to dislike killing in general. It was rather confusing to Nightbird who for the last millions of vorns had done nothing but mercilessly kill all her enemies. Just how were the Decepticons to gain anything if the Autobots suffered no casualties? This question had forced the differences to become apparent, as she had been trying to ignore them. The first Galvatron had been a gruff mech, filled with much resentment towards the Autobots. Galvatron II seemed naïve and almost friendly though there was a sense of pushing them away. The Decepticon leader had had a cool and tactical mind filled with thousands of ways to trap and slaughter Autobots before his descent into madness. The captain on the other servo was a free spirit, going where he wished without asking command anything. He kept laughing, but his laugh was sad. Galvatron I had been easy to describe, Galvatron II was full of contradictions. Sad, happy, strong, weak, social in solitude, content but yearning, a genius though uneducated, a Decepticon against killing, young and old, and both a leader and a follower. Part of Nightbird wanted to speak with him, to uncover all his secrets until she learned just who he was.

Again, her musings were interrupted when the ground gave a lurch and she hurried to steady herself. Galvatron had fallen over while Hook had stayed upright thanks to his instruments.

"I've got it," the engineer announced, "The shaking seems to be originating from some large moving mass in the center of the satellite."

"So part of the satellite is moving?" Galvatron II asked as he sat back up.

"No, remember how I told you all about a beast that was recorded in the Autobot database?"

"I vaguely recall some mention."

Nightbird felt her full tank hammering in anticipation not at the yammering of her comrades, but at a memory for long ago in a place similar to this one.

"I've come to the theory that due to that information, along with these readings, this isn't really a satellite. It's an egg!"

Hook seemed quite triumphant though he might as well said that they were about to die. Judging from Galvatron II's screwed up face plate, he had no idea what this meant.

"Egg?"

"That's why Onslaught sent us here! He didn't care about the Autobots, they were just an excuse. Onslaught must have known that this thing was about to hatch. He thinks that this will be our death if we weren't killed by the Autobots."

The ground gave another lurch, interrupting Hook. This time Galvatron stayed on his feet even if he did stumble a bit.

"Would you be so kind as to tell this 'uneducated fool' just what the slag an 'egg' is?"

"A capsule in which an organic can mature in."

"So the organic is coming out of the egg."

"We're not sure whether it's organic, but yes, it's hatching."

"And this satellite that we are currently standing on is the 'egg'."

"The fool has learned!"

"Then what's going to happen to the satellite when the thing hatches?"

For a moment, no one spoke and Nightbird decided that the question was an important one. The ground began to rumble, slowly growing in strength.

"Oh, it'll probably be destroyed in the hatching," Hook cried out as more cracks began to appear in the ground from a far off point. This time, Galvatron didn't fall. In fact, he seemed to be ignoring the signs of doom that had appeared.

"And why is this thing going to try and kill us?"

"I couldn't tell you!"

As Hook's hysterical screeches rang through the air, Galvatron's optics shot up suddenly. He pulled both Nightbird and Hook close to him shouting; "Look out!" as the air seemed to explode. Instinctively, Nightbird curled into the protective shield that Galvatron had offered, though her optics remained on the place where the 'explosion' had come from. There was rubble flying through the air and dust kept her from discerning just what had caused it, but she had a good idea based on the medics ranting. From within the dust, a roar shook everything. Galvatron's figure tightened and his optics had hardened. Nightbird could see that he was afraid of something. Turning back, she saw just what had been causing the satellite to break up.

It was huge. That was her first thought. It was easily as big as the Nemesis, the Decepticon flagship. It was also technorganic; at least it seemed technorganic with its huge, bulging green optics and its huge mouth open with glossa flailing. Two pincers are at the front while three pairs of legs circle its abdomen and a pair of huge black wings sprouted from its back. Hook had been right, they had been sent to their deaths.

Galvatron turned around and looked at the technorganic himself. He seemed awed.

"What is it Hook?"

"Don't know..." Hook whispered as he shook with obvious fright, "Looks like it's technorganic."

The beast of Polrise 8 swung its head turning both optics upon the three of them. It crawled out of its hole with its huge tail whipping in the little air and placed itself in a line in front of them. Beside her, Nightbird heard the sound of swords being powered up. Galvatron II gave the impression of nervousness.

"Do you think we should run?"

"Do I-?"

"I wasn't talking to you."

Nightbird found Galvatron's optics locked on her. It was surprising, but maybe the youngling was just trying to get her to talk. He opened his mouth again when the ground shook again.

There was no time to look over Galvatron's back to see the beast charging. An arm was wrapped around her frame and her feet left the ground met instead by the little air that was around. It rushed passed her and she realized that Galvatron had grabbed herself in one arm, and judging by the screams of terror, Hook in the other before bolting into the air. She twisted to look down at the ground where, yes, the beast was eyeing the place where they had just been, its head circling the area. Galvatron levelled out and Hook panted beside them.

"Warn me next time!" he shouted, and below them, Nightbird saw the beast turn its head up and see them.

"Thank you Hook," Galvatron stated rather calmly despite the fear and agitation that Nightbird could see when she turned to look at his optics. "You just told it our position."

The beast roared again, then its wings spread out beating the air. It shot up after them, tail raised, and she could see the tip beginning to glow.

Galvatron shot off her right barely avoiding the beast's claws. Once more she twisted and saw the beast circle until it found them again. Then she realized that Galvatron was heading for the ground.

He landed in an area with many large rock formations and dropped them out of the beasts' sight.

"Stay here."

And he took off again in a burst of purple light in his jet mode.

Above her, the beast flew rearing its head and out of the glowing tip of its tail, it shot a stream of greenish energy at the captain. In his jet mode, Galvatron easily evaded. He began to fly away, with the beast followed screaming, roaring and snapping its claws.

Nightbird realized with a start that he was trying to lead it away. His voice came through her commlink.

"Get Hook, and go to the Artemis. I'll meet up with you guys when I lose this thing."

She couldn't reply, but she understood. In that moment, she made a choice.

-(\:/)-

Galvatron heard his commlink turn off. He hoped that Nightbird had listened to him, because he didn't want to comm Hook. Every time that he tried to speak to the mech, he seemed to get into an argument.

On the bright side, outmanoeuvring the beastie thingy was easy. He was faster and smarter than it. On the down side it didn't ever seem to run out of energy! It roared, it flapped, it shot lasers at his tail, but it didn't stop coming!. When he, Nightbird and Hook were on the Artemis, he would attempt to lose it.

This meant that he had to keep its attention. That wasn't as easy as he had thought. After a few minutes, its eyes drifted to the ground and it began to fly lower. He cursed to himself and began executing his 'fancy flying' that had been embraced by Sky-Byte but frowned on by Cyclonus. It did the trick though. The beast roared again, and began to shoot at him flying to new heights. It was good for him in a way. Galvatron found himself practicing every set of manoeuvres that he could remember along with a few battle tactics that the tone-deaf Admiral had taught him.

Hot burning screamed through his wing. Instinctively, he transformed and put a servo to cover the injury. A dark shadow covered him, and he cursed for momentarily forgetting the beast. A claw appeared, ready to snap him in half.

In his fear, the boosters on his feet spluttered off. The little gravity on the planet took over and he began to fall- avoiding the claw that tried to snap around him.

So Freefalling was a possible manoeuvre for combat. He had only ever used freefall to conserve fuel. He noted this for future reference.

The beastie wasn't done yet. It seemed surprised to see him falling, but started to fall after him with another roar. A claw snapped out at his leg, and crunched in a painful manner. He cried out attempting to hold his foot. The booster was probably gone now. He used his other one to push himself faster, until he realized just how fast the ground was coming. In jet mode, he could pull off a last klik drive but he had never tried in his bipedal form.

"Well, no time like the present!" he laughed using his remaining booster to shoot him off at an angle. The beastie seemed surprised again, and didn't seem to register the ground. He couldn't focus on its crash, he had to spend his effort on landing without offlining himself. The booster wouldn't support his weight, and though he appeared to be heading at the ground in a slant, the fact was that the ground approached at a rather uncomfortable pace.

A memory flashed up. During the battle he had been a part of on Cybertron, all the Decepticons had jumped out of the cruisers, even the grounded mechs. These mechs had done some sort of roll towards the end of the fall and appeared on the planets surface unharmed. All the details of how each mech had performed this technique that he had seen became available. It looked simple enough, and the ground was nearly here. He couldn't tuck, so he improvised with a roll. The ground still crunched into his armor, but it wasn't as bad as he had predicted. Still, every part of him ached. The only places that didn't hurt were his left wing and his right leg, but he couldn't feel anything at all. A distant memory recalled that this wasn't a good thing.

He laid there not moving for a moment, just to calm his vents. Never before had he been so...beat up! Okay, so Cyclonus tended to pound him pretty hard, but nothing like this. Some part of him noticed that beastie was roaring in pain. Dust was beginning to settle.

Was this it?

Not what he had in mind really...

Another memory, an orange container, a blue crystal orb, a million voices, warmth, promise.

Hope.

This wouldn't be how it ended.

Galvatron groaned, using his arms to push himself off the ground. He didn't look down at his body, part of him already knew his condition. He was almost out of power, but maybe... Maybe he could get in one shot.

The orange barrel on his arm was raised up into the air. He did his best to point it toward the beastie, which didn't seem interested in him anymore. It was focused on the ground which it was currently devouring.

So that was its source of food? He noted it for future reference. The cannon on his arm lowered.

"Captain!"

The beastie didn't seem to hear Hook's wild shout that Galvatron quickly realized had been over the commlink, but its optics noticed the Artemis flying over head. What were they doing?

"We're coming in! By Primus, you're a mess!"

No slag.

He could hear the beastie roar, but not the flapping of its wings. Maybe it was too tired to chase after her?

Things began to blur, but not before a huge white and green mech appeared before him.

"Let's...get you...back to Artemis."

Then there was darkness.

-(\:/)-

Bruticus had been on level 154 of his number game when Hook had called him through his commlink needing a pick up. He hadn't thought much of it, just piloted the ship towards the coordinates that Hook had told him. When he arrived, he found Hook and Nightbird by a deep crater. Hook went on about some gigantic monster that was chasing Galvatron. Bruticus had been ready to go after Galvatron when Nightbird had disappeared. He decided to go after Galvatron first, because Nightbird could take care of herself while Galvatron seemed to like taking more risks.

Finding and catching up to the monster had been easy, seeing Galvatron getting hurt hadn't. Bruticus had given the ship to Hook while he headed down to the planet to get Galvatron. The monster didn't seem to know what to think of them yet.

Seeing Galvatron's injuries up close made Bruticus' head hurt. Much of the armor was dented, scuffed and missing small chunks but the wing and right leg were the worst. The wing was sparking madly, tip burned completely away. He was missing the lower half of his right leg and the end where the removed leg had been was clamped shut, but bleeding energon. He needed Hook.

Bruticus hesitated before picking up the unconscious mech. He had never carried a hurt mech before. Slowly, he headed back to the Artemis. Now of course, the monster decided to attack. Thankfully it didn't get very far. Nightbird had reappeared and was throwing her shock shuriken which didn't seem to do anything but annoy it. The monster spun around, and looked confused. Nightbird had disappeared again.

Well, she was a cyberninja. Bruticus jumped from one of the hills and struggled to climb aboard the Artemis without hurting Galvatron. Hook appeared in the doorway but didn't look happy.

"Leave him there," he shouted, "You need to get back out there and help Nightbird kill that thing."

Part of Bruticus thought that leaving Galvatron on the floor of the Artemis wasn't a good idea. He was about to speak when he heard the sound of laser fire and decided that he was needed by the cyberninja more. He took one last look at Galvatron before leaving.

The moment that Bruticus jumped out of the Artemis, he saw many white orbs of light spinning around the monster before hitting its armor. It let a roar of frustration as sparks leaped across its body. Lasers from its tail shot wildly and its claws smashed boulders as it reared its head and it roared. Bruticus ran forward and released the prongs that were attached to his fists by long thick cables and swung wildly. They hit the monster in the eye and it staggered. He span around, increasing the length of the cables and swung them again, this time tangling the monster's neck. He pulled with all his might to bring it down, but the monster was stronger and pulled him off his pedes. As Bruticus found himself swinging through the air, he noticed Nightbird had appeared and was charging at the monster with her swords. She plunged them into its tail, cutting off the tip that shot the laser. The monster didn't roar, it screamed with pain. By the time Bruticus recovered from it, Nightbird had disappeared. The cables slackened slightly, and Bruticus landed hard...on the monster's back!

Not wanting to be tossed around anymore, Bruticus rewound the cables until he was practically hugging the monster's neck. At this point, the monster began to run around and buck wildly, trying to get him off. Bruticus began to get dizzy, he had done something similar to this when he had sparred with Devastator millions of stellar cycles ago, but it was hard to compare. He noticed Nightbird running alongside of them, with her swords still drawn. The monster began to flap its wings. It was trying to take off!

"No!" he shouted, planting his feet firmly on its back, then pulling with all his might at the cables. The monster bucked again, head rearing, eyes rolling. It began to take steps backward. Out of the corner of his optic, he saw Nightbird freeze.

She was quick to recover, putting away her swords she tossed many more shuriken at the monsters exposed belly. It gave a strangled yelp then a sharp screech as the electricity danced over its body, shocking Bruticus in the process. The energy was painful, and he wasn't even the target. Finally, the monster flew exhausted onto the ground. Bruticus watched it in slight awe. It was still alive, he could tell because the back he stood on came up and down. Nightbird was watching him carefully. Slowly, Bruticus loosened his cables, and Nightbird walked up to help him untangle himself from the neck. It took a minute, but Bruticus slid back to the ground and retracted the cables and prongs into his fist. He looked back at the monster.

"So..." he looked at Nightbird, "what do...we do with...it?"

Nightbird shrugged, then turned back to walk to the Artemis. Bruticus, looked back at the monster. It didn't look very scary anymore. It looked sad and hurt. Not that different from when he had last seen Galvatron, but Galvatron hadn't been sad.

Still, they needed someway to keep it from flying away, or attacking them again.

Bruticus sat down for guard duty.

-(\:/)-

Hook had moved Galvatron from the cargo bay where Bruticus had left him to the medical bay and hooked him up to the machines there without much difficultly. It wasn't that different from when he had saved Megatron in Tyger Pax. Both were around the same size, but Megatron had been hit by the Magnus Hammer in the chest and then shot at by seven different and powerful Elite Guard Bots. At that time he had had to tow Megatron to safety, then patch him up enough to get him back onto the field.

Galvatron was worse off than Megatron, because all Megatron had needed was a patch while Galvatron would need a new leg and two new wings. He didn't have the parts for those. And the youngling was leaking energon in an insane manner.

Well, he needed to start somewhere.

He took out a set of tools and went to work opening the crushed metal around the missing leg. The moment he opened it, energon poured out even faster. He cursed, then probed for the main energon line, which he squeezed shut. Higher up, he placed a pin to pinch it closed. This process was repeated with every energon line that he found. After plugging the lines, a machine beside him beeped. Turning, he read the warning regarding the low fuel. From above the work area, Hook grabbed various feeding tubes and plugged them into Galvatron. He returned his attention the leg, to which he brought a cleaning rag to clean up all the split energon. Next he took off the mechs helmet, plugging in a few monitor cords which he used to put Galvatron into a less fatal stasis lock and turned off any pain receptors that might have reactivated.

The leg looked better, and he could probably leave it alone for a breem. He turned to the wing.

Wings were much easier to take care of then legs. There weren't any more fuel lines and were made to be removed without causing pain to the mech or femme they were attached to. Hook didn't have any of Galvatron's wing models with him, but he would need to make another leg anyway. He removed the clasps that attached the wing to the leg and pulled it off. The burn didn't look good, almost half of what had been a wing was gone. Shaking his head, Hook placed the wing on a counter before taking a look at the rest of Galvatron. His armor was banged up, and his insides appeared a bit rattled, but other than that, Hook found that the only dangerous injury was his leg.

Hook turned his attention to the other leg, which despite losing a wing, was in pretty good shape. If he could get a look at the engineering, he could build a new leg for the youngling. He began to scan the leg, making notes on what he would need and listing parts that he had.

Looking up at the sound of the door sliding open, Hook saw Nightbird enter then turn to stare at Galvatron.

"Perfect timing," he spoke up, "I'm going to need some parts from the cargo bay. Here's a list, run down and get them, will you?"

Nightbird didn't answer at first simply staring at Galvatron with her strange optics filled with something that Hook couldn't name. Without looking at him, she snatched the list and ran out of the room, door closing behind her. Hook's optics blinked after her, but he just shrugged then returned to work on his captain.

* * *

><p>Stay tuned for the conclusion of the Polrise Arc, ending in November. (This was by far the most enjoyable chapter to write!)<p> 


	5. Polrise Part 3

I'll probably regret updating so quickly, but here's chapter 5, the last of the Polrise Arc. Once again, A great big shout out to Darth T-Rex and autobot12328, who are both very helpful to me, so hurry up autobot12328! I need that chapter!

In Transformers related news, I realized upon research that I had gotten Runabout and Runamuck mixed up. I like the way I have them though, so no changes. In Transformers Prime, we have witnessed the greatest plot twist of all time. I await season 2.

On a Final note, I switch to Shockwave's point of view at the end, not because I wanted to, but because I didn't feel like writing three action scenes in a row. Also, things get a little weird this chapter with Galvatron. I have a plot in mind, Darth T-Rex's permission, but said plot won't happen for a long time.

In any event, Enjoy!

* * *

><p><span>In which the Team and the Beast is named<span>

**Timecode: 9501.2.13**

Bruticus sat outside the Artemis watching the monster chomping away at the rocks below it. It was restrained by a bunch of cables that Hook had found. He claimed that they were for fixing ships, but at the moment, the Artemis was in good shape and the monster was not. Luckily, it hadn't tried to run away yet. Bruticus thought that it seemed scared of them now. He was still trying to decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Galvatron was still in the medical bay. Hook would be installing his new leg right now. It hadn't taken that long for Hook to make it, although Hook was still making Galvatron's new wings. During Nightbird's shift, Hook had called New Kaon and notified them about what had happened. They hadn't seemed happy, but Bruticus didn't think that they were sad about Galvatron nearly dying. Hook had tried to order some parts to fix Galvatron's wings, but the mechs he had been talking to wouldn't let him get what he needed. Something about being over ordered. When he heard this, Hook had started yelling and cursing until Sky-Byte had appeared on the screen. Then he had yelled some more. Something about Galvatron's wellbeing.

Hook had told him that Galvatron would be waking up later today. That was good. He missed Galvatron. Hook was grumpy and bossy. He liked to order him around lots.

After Hook had finished yelling on the phone, Bruticus got on to talk to the Heavy Brigade. Menasor had been moved with Team Inferno to patrol or something, but Blackout, Devastator and Predaking had still answered. They seemed happy to see him. When he had told them about the monster and Galvatron, they had seemed very excited. Bruticus didn't know at first why, but Predaking and Blackout had explained between Devastator's confusing intervals that they were excited about riding the monster. That had made Bruticus laugh, because it hadn't been exciting, it had been terrifying. The others had joined into his laughter though, for the wrong reasons.

Nightbird appeared beside Bruticus from seemingly nowhere. She had been doing that a lot recently. Bruticus thought it was because Galvatron was hurt and she felt guilty. He had never heard her talk, but she seemed to like to hear him talk, as long as he didn't try point out that it wasn't her fault.

"Galvatron's...waking up today."

She nodded, but she didn't look up at him. She never made optic contact unless she was trying to intimidate him.

"I don't...think that...he'll kill it," he gestured to the monster.

Nightbird looked at him with her narrow optics.

"He doesn't...like to...kill. He'll...find another...way to...deal with it."

Her optics turned away and she nodded.

"It's...scared of...us."

The grey helm nodded again.

"I think...it doesn't...want to...hurt us."

A shrug.

"Bruticus, Nightbird, medical bay, now." Hook snapped through both of their commlinks.

He rose slowly to his feet. The monster looked up at him before returning to the bolder in front of it. Bruticus didn't need to turn to see that Nightbird had already disappeared.

It took him four breems to get to the medical bay. There, Nightbird sat at the desk and Hook was leaning on the medical machines looking impatient.

"About time," he huffed upon seeing Bruticus. "I'm about to take Galvatron out of stasis lock. I thought it would be best if you two were here in case he needed restraining."

Bruticus turned and looked at Galvatron's seeing form. His armor had been buffed, leg replaced, and wings fitted smartly. Hook seemed to be a fast worker. He hoped that he hadn't worked too fast and wrecked the repairs.

Hook was punching several commands into the machine. When he was done, he turned to Galvatron, removing the wires in his helm and replacing the helmet. The dark optics began to glow.

-(\:/)-

Most Cybertronians didn't dream. Only a select few even knew what dreaming was. Recharge and stasis was usually filled with recent memories that were organizing themselves into the long term memory unit. If the recent memories were good, then recharge was good. If they weren't, the recharging mechs would find themselves awakening repeatedly throughout the night as the uncontrollable parts of their processor attempted organization.

Galvatron was one of those lucky mechs that knew what a dream was. To a Cybertronian, a dream was a mechs processor reaching beyond what they knew, and touching new realms, but familiar ones.

His dreams were filled with the Allspark.

Not imaginary passages of himself claiming it for the Decepticon cause as he was sure Megatron wished, but of the time that he had met the Allspark.

During the last battle on Cybertron, he hadn't really fought. The battlefield had spooked him, and he had tripped into a pit. There, he had fallen into stasis lock for a time and when he awoke, he ran. He hadn't known where he was running, or why, but some part of him had told him that he needed to run.

He had stumbled upon the two Autobots escorting the Allspark to the space bridge where they would later throw the Allspark to keep it from the Decepticons.

The Autobots had dropped the Allspark the moment they had seen him and charged. Defeating them had been easy enough, but he couldn't bring himself to deliver the final blow. Instead, he had turned to the Allspark. The orange case had opened up when he had approached, and the blue orb in the center had floated up. Part of Galvatron wanted to reach out, to claim it as his prize. But it wasn't his prize. It had spoken to him, in front of the two Autobots that watched the whole thing behind him laying on the metallic surface of Cybertron. It told him that he was needed, someday, it would need him to do something for it. More importantly, it had told him that he wasn't the Galvatron. He was a different mech. He was Galvatron II. He had met the real Galvatron. He hadn't been happy to see him.

"Sounds like Megatron's beginning to lose it," the original Galvatron had sighed, "Listen, you don't want to kill mechs, it'll end badly."

The Allspark had closed, leaving Galvatron II with the Autobots. He had simply left them there, slowly making his way back up to the battlefield where the order to retreat would soon sound.

He remembered all this, then the feeling of endless space, blue transwarp energy, and a force carried on by millions of voices had enveloped him. This, he was sure, was the Allspark flying through the space bridge. Today though, it ended differently. The blue light ended. The black void of space could be seen along with an asteroid belt. The Allspark crashed into the rocks, only to be uncovered by a pair of blue hands.

The vision faded, Galvatron felt himself returning to the real world.

-(\:/)-

The first thing he saw on returning was a grey ceiling. The medical bay? The last thing he remembered was pain, and a mech in front of him. Probably Bruticus, judging by the colors. Well, if he was in a medical bay, then that meant he was alive, and if he was alive that meant that the beastie thingy had been subdued. So far so good. His sensors were on felt as though they were on fire, most of him ached, and he couldn't move. What about talking, could he speak?

"Good morning," he rasped. His vocals burned along with the rest of them, his voice sounded scratchy. Still, the moment he said this, some sort of invisible pressure lifted.

"Well good morning, Captain No-CPU," Hook's sarcastic voice rang out, but part of it sounded happy.

"How long was I out?"

"Two...megacycles."

There was Bruticus, he also sounded strangely relieved.

His body began to respond wearily, and he slowly sat up, looking around. Bruticus was in the doorway, while Nightbird was standing and looking at him with those awed filed optics (again). Hook was on his right and grumbling like always as he grabbed Galvatron's arm and tugged.

"Get up you lazy aft, I need to see how that new leg supports your weight. Then you should fly so we can check your wings."

At the mention of 'new leg', Galvatron abruptly remembered just how much the beastie had hurt him. Looking down at himself, he saw a grey leg and grey wings. Another part of him noticed that his dents were gone.

He jumped off the medical berth and onto the floor despite his body's protests. Unconsciously he began to walk outside, noticing after a breem that the others were following him. Once again he stepped onto the light blue rocks of Polrise 8, and saw much to his surprise the beastie.

It had looked up when it saw them approaching, and Galvatron couldn't help but notice the fear in its optics as it stared at him. The stinger that had shot the laser which had burned through his left wing had been removed. It kept shuffling, its claws making large scratches as it tried to move away. Strange clicks could be heard coming from its vocals, the wings on its back were trying to unfold, but thick cables tied it to the ground. In front of it were various boulders that had bite marks, telling him that the creature had been eating before he had arrived.

"Alright," Hook's voice boomed from behind him, and Galvatron realized that he had been staring at the beastie, "Let's give those wings a try. Go on! Take off already!"

Galvatron needed no more prompting. He took a running start then launched himself into the air, transforming while he did so. His engines roared to life, and all the burning pain in his systems seemed to leak out of him as he shot through up until there was only the flight, and the pure pleasure in the flight. Through habit, he began to fly his favorite manoeuvres, tricks and stunts. He had been about to perform a couple trickier patterns when Hook shouted at him again.

"I understand that you're enjoying yourself, but we've got unfinished business here!"

Sighing at Hook's impatience, Galvatron landed as he would have outside of the docks; right in front of Hook. The reaction from said mech was delightful, as he screeched and fell back. Galvatron roared with laughter, and beside him Bruticus could be heard chuckling as well.

Hook was quick to gather himself again, "First, we need to get back to the medical bay and check to see how those parts are working-"

"They're fine Hook," Galvatron laughed and grinned, "Honestly, don't you have any confidence in your work?"

"Of course it's perfect!" the green engineer barked as if anything less was absurd.

"Great! Then let's skip to number two!"

"Second, you need to contact the Council of Generals and let them know that you're full functional again-"

"Wait," Galvatron wasn't laughing anymore, "you told them about..." frantically, the young captain gestured to his new leg.

"I did actually, so you need to end their party. Third, you need to decide what to do about that." Hook pointed to the beastie. Galvatron simply looked at it.

"Let's start with that one. I think that we should just let it go."

"What?"

Surprisingly, both Hook wasn't the only one to shout in shock. Bruticus had exclaimed loudly also, and Nightbird was just staring at him. The stare wasn't awe filled.

"Bruticus, I would have expected you to know me better!"

"I knew... that you wouldn't...want to...kill it. But...I thought that...you'd have me...or Nightbird...put it somewhere...far away."

Galvatron shrugged, "It's obviously scared of us, I don't think that it'll try anything at this point. And if it was free, I wouldn't need to worry about what it might do to any other Cybertronians."

Nightbird and Hook still appeared shocked witless, but Bruticus was frowning in the way that he did when he was going over things in his processor. Eventually, he nodded. "Okay...I'll take off... the cables."

"Okay!" Hook burst out. "No! Not okay! You two are obviously out of it!"

"It's scared...and it won't...hurt us," Bruticus tried to explain.

"I don't care! I would sleep a lot better if I knew that thing was dead and gone!"

"Go on then."

Hook turned and looked at Galvatron, who was giving his best evil smile. "I warn you though, I won't let you."

The poor engineer was spluttering again, "How can you- You said I could- Then you say no- Which is it slaggit?"

"I'm simply saying that you can go ahead and try, but if you do, I will stop you." He decided to drop the smile, and resumed the hard look that he had used on Hook when they had first boarded the Artemis seven stellar cycles ago. Frag, had it really been that long? It felt as though it had been vorns!

The red visor snapped between Galvatron and the beastie a few times before Hook cursed loudly and returned to the Artemis. Galvatron turned to the remaining mech and femme.

"So, either of you willing to help me untie it?"

Nightbird shrugged, as if it didn't matter to her, but Bruticus nodded. They walked over to the beastie, which gave a scream and tried in frenzied motions to get away, claws and teeth snapping. Galvatron put up his arms.

"Easy, easy there..."

The beastie was still struggling, but it seemed to be calming down slightly. Galvatron approached slowly. The frantic movements slowed with him and the claws stopped snapping. He brought his servos to its huge head which it quickly jerked back. He kept at it though and he found himself slowly caressing its face. Some part of him pointed out that despite its size, it was really just a youngling even younger than himself. A much traumatized youngling just like him. He looked over his shoulder to see that Bruticus and Nightbird were watching completely stunned. Galvatron pointed at the cables mouthing the word, 'Slowly'. They nodded before making their way to the anchors. Nightbird seemed to disappear, but if he looked hard enough Galvatron could see that Nightbird hadn't disappeared, but had turned the same blue as her surroundings. A camouflage mod. Useful. He turned his attention back to the beastie. It didn't seem to realize that it was being freed, but that was good for now. Galvatron counted down the number of cables until its freedom.

4...3...2...

Finally, it seemed to realise some was up.

1...0.

"Go on," Galvatron whispered to it. The beastie raised its head and tried to stretch its wings...to find that it could. It yelped in surprise, then saw Bruticus walking away with the last restraint. Turning back to Galvatron, it nudged him almost fondly before picking itself up and flying off with a great burst of its wings. Galvatron found himself laughing in joy at seeing it return to the air just as he had. It circled above his head roaring and its claws clicking for a while, but quickly landed and went back to eating the satellite's rocky surface.

"Well, I think I made the right choice," Galvatron laughed as he turned back to the Artemis followed closely by Bruticus and Nightbird, "Now to take care of the Council of Imbeciles."

-(\:/)-

Within the next two breems, Nightbird was witness to the Artemis taking off back to New Kaon. According to Galvatron, Onslaught had been rather shocked to find him still in relatively one piece, thus had ordered them back to receive their next mission.

"Of course, we all know what this means," Galvatron was grinning excitedly at all of them on the bridge. "Team name time!"

"Team Beastie?" Hook supplied sarcastically. He was still sore about the beast's fate.

"Too childish, Bruticus?"

"Team...Rebel?"

"Not everyone knows what we are but better."

Nightbird began to give thought to it herself, and jotted names on a datapad. Behind her, Hook and Bruticus continued.

"Team Blue?"

"Makes me think of Autobots."

"Team...Life?"

"Let's keep the fact that I let Autobots live a secret, okay?"

"Team Polrise 8."

"That's too much like Team Chaar."

"Team...Blade?"

"Hm...I think we can do better than that."

She looked up and held out her datapad, which Galvatron took and began to read aloud.

"Team Ore, Team Heresy, Team Diana, Team Avenger. I like the sound of Heresy, but there's already a ship called Avenger."

"I don't like Heresy, makes me feel like I'm a pitspawn."

"I...like Team...Diana."

Galvatron seemed surprised by Bruticus' choice, "Oh, why Diana?"

"Diana...is another...way to say...Artemis."

Hook nodded, "So you're suggesting that we be named after our ship."

"Diana and Artemis...never miss."

The captain looked at Nightbird, "You okay with this?"

She nodded.

"Alright, Team Diana it is!"

"I don't think a team has ever been named after their ship."

"We're different, my foolish yet knowledgeable medical officer. I think that customs no longer apply to us."

Bruticus seemed happy enough, and Hook wasn't complaining. Galvatron began issuing the commands and passwords to get them off the ground. Nightbird turned back to her consul and typed also, bringing up shield and external sensors readings. One of her sensors began flaring, and she found herself rather surprised at what it told her. Considering the voice behind her, she hadn't been the only one to notice it.

"What is it?" Galvatron asked curiously. Nightbird put her findings up on the main view screen for all of them to see.

"Oh look," Hook chuckled, "Autobots. I thought that they didn't care about this outpost much either."

"Ah, but then I pointed out that they cared about the space bridge. Okay, let's hide for now and watch from a distance."

"But-"

"I'd rather avoid a second Autobot confrontation. Bruticus?"

The Heavy stirred them away, and Nightbird watched the screen as a tiny red dot moved across the purple screen. It neared Polrise 8 then stopped moving. Nightbird felt the rest of the mechs in the room stop ventilating. Galvatron shot out of his seat.

"Where's the beastie?"

Hook seemed surprised by his question, "What? How would I know, I was all for killing the thing!"

"The Autobots could be here for it!"

It wasn't impossible, after all, if Onslaught had known about the beast, then it was rather logical to say that the Autobots knew of its existence as well.

"Really? Good for them!"

"I'm going back to Polrise," the captain turned to leave.

Nightbird didn't think about what she was doing, she just got up and flung her shuriken at the mech. He didn't see them coming and fell to the ground twitching.

"I just fixed him," Hook grumbled beside her, but she just got up and retrieved her shuriken. He looked at her in the optics rather pathetically.

"Why shouldn't I go after it?" he asked sadly, and Nightbird was shocked by the honesty of it. Even worse was the fact that she couldn't answer him. Oh, she probably could, but she hadn't spoken for five million stellar cycles. Slag, she didn't even know if her vocals worked anymore. Galvatron himself sighed.

"Why don't you ever talk? It's harder to decide whether to like you or not."

She blinked her optics. No, she wouldn't speak now. He wasn't the original Galvatron, just a pathetic copy that Megatron had ordered created to get over killing his former master. Nightbird hardened herself and returned to her seat. Even without turning around, she could see Galvatron sigh again.

"What do you think Bruticus?"

The Heavy was still looking at the view screen when he began to reply, "I think...the Autobots...won't hurt...the monster. They want...to study it."

Hook spoke up, "You don't know how Autobot's study. For them it means taking it to a Cybertronian lab and taking it apart."

"It's like I said, we need to go back and keep them away from bea- you know what? It needs a name."

The crew of the newly named Team Diana turned to their captain.

"I don't think this is the appropriate time!" Hook spluttered.

"For you, there is no appropriate time! Let's name it...Ore! It was one of the names on Nightbird's list!"

The engineer turned to glare at her, but she ignored it.

"So we need to keep Ore out of Autobot hands! They don't know it-her!"

"So now you decide it has a gender too?"

"Saying it makes her sound stupid, and she's not."

"But what if it's a he-"

"We're you the one to point out that this isn't the time? Anyway, she might get scared and kill them or she won't and be captured. Either way, we lose."

"I don't really see how we'd lose if she'd kill them-"

"The Autobots would think that I'd done it! And that just won't do! No Sir!"

"Well, I'd say rust in peace; scumbags."

"Nice to know you agree with me, take us back Bruticus!"

"Wait, what?"

Bruticus began to move the ship back toward Polrise 8, despite the annoying wails emitting from Hook's vocalizer. Nightbird eventually turned to Galvatron to find the latter's optic twitching, and he motioned to her to as she interrupted it, to shut him up.

She was happy to oblige.

-(\:/)-

Timecode: 9501.2.29

A team of Autobots which had gone to Polrise 8 with the attention of taking back the satellite for the Autobot scientists to study returned battered and frightened. They spent fourteen megacycles in the medical ward, much to Shockwave's disdain, before he was allowed to debrief them in the form of Longarm Minor.

He sat opposite to a green and yellow mech, "Officer Overhaul, I understand that this is difficult for you, but Autobot intelligence needs to know exactly what happened to you all on the satellite in question: Polrise 8."

The Autobot Overhaul twitched at 'Polrise 8', "I, I understand sir. I'll do my best Longarm Sir."

"Thank you Overhaul. Please, take your time in answering, we're in no hurry." Although Onslaught did want to know exactly what the new Captain, Galvatron II, could have done to put Autobots in such a state.

"Yes sir, thank you sir."

"And don't worry about formalities, I've found that when a bot is comfortable, facts come to mind much easier."

"Thank you si- I-I mean, thank you."

"Let's start in the beginning, okay Overhaul? You were chosen for this assignment because..?"

"I'm a good fighter, and I've put a few cons in the stockades," he gave a small grin when he said this. There was still fear in his optics and Shockwave wanted the mech to get on with the facts. There were much better methods at retrieving information than this, Longarm Minor wouldn't use them. He was really quite disgusted by the mech in front of him.

"So you left sixteen megacycles ago with your team."

"Yes si- oh, um. I mean, that's right."

"What did you think of the others?"

The Autobot went into a long talk about each of the seven other mechs. Shockwave tuned it all out. He had gone and looked up the other's psych profiles, along with the mech in front of him. This mech's opinion didn't matter. He continued questioning when the Autobot had finished, now much more relaxed.

"Alright Overhaul, this is where things get harder, but I know you'll do your best," Shockwave forced a convincing smile upon Longarm's faceplates before dropping into a business mode, "I need you to tell me exactly what happened when you reached the satellite."

Luckily, the Autobot had relaxed enough that he only needed to take a deep vent before telling.

"On the 14th cycle, Polrise came into view. The first thing why noticed was that the space bridge was gone. Looked like it had been blown up by something. At least that's what Scattershot thought. We began to land when that, ship I think, appeared over head. I mean, one klik it wasn't there, and the next, our sensor's are blaring about a warship and there it is directly above us!"

Yes, Shockwave had heard that the Artemis had been fitted with signal dampeners by Hook, who was on the crew. He probably knew how to use them better than anyone.

"Well, Backstop began shouting orders. He told everyone to get off the ship. I think he was afraid that we'd be killed if we stayed on board. Anyway we all evacuated and then the con ship opens up. Backstop seemed surprised. These three cons jumped out and landed in front of us. There was a purple flyer, a big green and white fella, and this little grey femme. She didn't look like much, but the other two were enough to spook us. Well, Backstop told them to surrender, and this purple one just laughed! He said something about whether he'd have to get used to that line or something like that. Then he just..."

"Take your time Overhaul, I know this can be hard." Shockwave felt excited despite himself. This was what he wanted to hear. This was where the data was incomplete.

"No, that's not it. I just can't really describe what they did. One klik the Decepticon is standing there laughing, and the next he's, well, he's standing right in front of Backstop, but Backstop's not there anymore. He's flying through the air and crashes straight into this rock that breaks up when he hits it. The Decepticon said something else, but I didn't catch it. Clocker was next, I think this was his first tussle because when he saw Backstop go flying, he broke down. Then the femmecon is behind him and he falls on the ground. Crosswise got angry and charged the purple one with his saws, but the con just held out this energy sword thing and blocked him as if it were nothing. That didn't make Crosswise happy, but I found myself dodging the big Decepticon, so I don't know what happened to anyone besides myself and Scattershot after that, because we were both trying to keep him off. Well, he got us eventually, pinned us to the ground. I thought that he was going to kill us when..."

"Go on," Shockwave prompted, keeping the excitement out of his vocalizer.

"Okay, there was this, well, roar. Everything shook, then this...thing, I guess, was flying above us. Can't tell you what it was, but it was big. Bigger than our ship. Seemed upset about something too, because when the purple con saw it, he freaked out. Hit Jolt and Springer hard, then ran to then thing. He started shouting at it, waving his arms but I don't think it saw him. It just waved these claw things about smashing boulders until the con grabbed its head..."

"Did he..?"

"That's what's so weird Longarm," Shockwave internally grimaced at the name. "They didn't do anything for a minute, though the femme went around kicking the others to the ship. The big con that was holding me and Scattershot down picked us up and threw us on the ship's conveyor belt. I couldn't move or hear for a second, don't know why, but when I looked back up, that purple con was in my faceplates, grinning still. I could see behind him his cons and that thing and when I looked at the others, they were unconscious. But anyway, the con just grins at me and says, ''Tell your Autobot friends that they aren't to come back here, or next time, not only will all their mechs die, I'll let Ore here lose on Cybertron.' He was pointing to the thing when he said Ore. But after that he just laughed and left us all there. I don't know how long I lay there, but I watched them go. I thought the others were dead until Backstop woke up."

The Autobot was shaking. Shockwave had gotten what he wanted, so he decided that this was a good place to end it.

"Thank you Overhaul, I think that'll be it today."

"Yeah, okay..."

Shockwave left the medical ward and began to travel to his office where he would tell the Decepticon General what he had learned.

* * *

><p>Thus concludes the Polrise Arc, Ore shall return in the far future, along with Hot Rod, who will by then be Rodimus, and we have a small filler chapter before the beginning of the Nightbird Arc. I shall see you all soon!<p>

Please Review (I hate putting this here...)


	6. Swindle

This chapter is long overdue, truth is, I didn't run it by Darth T-Rex this time. I'm a little afraid that's going to bite me in the butt. So in any event, I hope to have a second chapter up towards the middle of next week. It all depends on whether or not I'll need a barf bucket.

Happy Christmas.

* * *

><p><span>In which Team Diana begins their second journey<span>

**Timecode: 9501.2.3**

It had been a while since Team Diana had returned to New Kaon's rocky system. The improvement for each member had depended on the accept for which the mech or femme had been before. All together, the account of how they had shocked the Autobot's stationed had become nearly legend, though all of the team was sure that it would pass. It didn't matter much to the team though.

Nightbird prefered to stay away from the other Decepticons and aboard the Artemis if she could. She was a cyberninja and unaccustomed to fans. Even when she had been with Galvatron, Nightbird had remained in the shadows, protecting her lord from a distance. Now she no longer had a lord, she had this second Galvatron. Young and foolish, but he hadn't let her down yet. She still couldn't decide whether to follow him truly or not. The way he chose to act wasn't the Decepticon way, but it wasn't the Autobot way either. Galvatron II was a free spirit, forging his own path and choosing his own ideals even when they went against everything she knew. For example, he had chosen to not kill. It seemed almost impossible to Nightbird to be a Decepticon and to not kill.

Even more worrisome was her irrational wish to speak out to him. She would have to control herself.

"Nightbird, " Hook's voice called. He also preferred to stay aboard the Artemis. He claimed that there was no one in New Kaon worth speaking to. "Nightbird, get over here!"

Sighing to herself, she shut down her journal and turned, exiting her room to go to the medical bay. His voice seemed to be originating from there. Her optics laid on the engineer's green form.

"Can you get me some things?" he mumbled while holding out a datapad. "Galvatron's repairs depleted some of our supplies, and I want to get our stocks back up before we leave again."

She took the list without a word, but stared at Hook until he was uncomfortable enough to answer her unspoken question.

"Onslaught's found some new way to kill us," Hook shrugged, "I'm trying to keep us from dying."

Nightbird nodded before turning out the door. Hook's voice drifted back to her, "Pick of Galvatron and Bruticus while you're at it."

The cyberninja didn't bother to reply.

Exiting the Artemis, Nightbird found the docks much more active than they usually were. She also noticed that most of the ships docked were those that belonged to the Generals and others of high rank on their Council. The Galactic Arms Dealer, Swindle's ship was also docked though. In any event, they didn't matter in her current assignment. Swindle might matter because Hook, according to his list, was asking for some spare cannons. She also might be able to purchase some more shuriken.

The New Kaon Bazaar wasn't to far from the docks. It was open everyday, nearly all the time, showing off flashy weapons, armors, and other such parts. They had a section for ship building, though it was a little farther in, and Hook had given her a very specific list. About halfway through the bazaar, a voice called out to her.

"Why, my visual scanners must be faulty. Nightbird my great femme, it's good to see you again. Finally getting out and about I see."

A Decepticon slid up to her, he had a bronze armor with purple detailing along with large purple optics. His voice was smooth, and the careless mech would consider him a gentlemech. Nightbird knew better. Swindle was not to be taken lightly.

"Interested in some more of those shuriken? Heard you used quite a few on Polrise 8."

She turned to him and arched an optical ridge. Swindle would undoubtedly get the hint.

"Right this way my dear," he put his arm around her and guided her to a small stand where he always set up shop when he was there. He left her in front as he moved behind the counter. Some Decepticons began to watch.

"Now then," he opened his front casing and began to empty differently shaped shuriken onto the counter, "I have the standard mold, not flashy but sturdy and harder to break. There are those stun that you like, sharp though not as sturdy and pack 7,000 volts. There are these new viral shuriken, flashy, and fragile but if they get even the smallest scratch a virus will input into any Autobots system leaving them inoperable for a whole cycle. Then there are these ones, not standard but close, you see they're just as sturdy, but much sharper from the standard."

Nightbird pulled out her list and handed it to Swindle as she went through the stun shuriken. The dealer went quiet as he observed the list, but quickly began to chuckle.

"Hook, that old rust bucket. He's a wonderful bot and knows how to drive a bargain. Why, last time I saw him he sold me a Justice class engine for 100,000 credits. Good deal for both of us. Those things are hard to come by. Well, least's see what I can do for him. I have that, and that, and that might be a little tricky."

The cyberninja ignored the salesbot, focusing on testing each of the stun shuriken, for balance, volts, and edge. Swindle kept scrolling through the list until she tapped his chassis indicating she was ready for purchase.

"Alright my dear, lets do this. Then we'll head over to your ship to speak with Hook about these parts. So that'll be 60,000 credits."

That was a rip off. She looked back up at Swindle and glared.

"Hey, those are hard to come by!"

Liar, she knew exactly what one went through to get one shuriken. They only cost 50 credits from the manufacturers.

"Look, I need to make some profit, 50,000 credits."

She snatched a datapad from subspace and wrote out her desired price on it. Swindle gaped when he saw it.

"5,000 credits? Nightbird, I admire your abilities, but this is-!"

The line of abuse was culled by a glare. She had seen Swindle deal with other bots, and knew what happened when things got messy. Nightbird was capable of dealing with the mech's weapons system, and there were few that could.

They stared for a while, each waiting for the other to falter. Nightbird eventually became aware of the crowd of Decepticons around them. Knowing Swindle, he would have noticed them long before her. Also knowing Swindle, he wouldn't risk a confrontation. It would be bad to his reputation.

"Fine, 5,000 credits," he grumbled and took out a datapad scribbling on it. "Need your signature."

Nightbird took the datapad and read it to make sure everything was in order before signing. They swapped the datapad for her weapons. Swindle grinned.

"Now let's go meet Hook!"

-(\:/)-

Bruticus sat outside the Heavy's barracks again as if nothing had happened. Beside him sat Predaking, and in front of him, Devastator and Blackout were sparring for the gambling pool. When he had returned to New Kaon, his brothers had been immensely proud of him. They had even suggested that Bruticus join their spars. Bruticus wasn't sure whether he would though.

Everyone else on New Kaon wasn't sure what to make of Bruticus. His displeasure of fighting had always put him off to the side, but now he had returned successfully from a mission and had battle scars to prove it, though Hook had tried to fix them. Bruticus had been reminded of the medics that had come to offline him , and Galvatron had seemed to recognize his distress to tell Hook to leave him alone. It was nice of him to do so.

"Hey, Bruticus," Predaking spoke up. Said Heavy paused his game and looked at his brother, "Are you going to be leaving again anytime soon?"

"I'm not...sure," Bruticus shrugged and looked up to the stars. "We have to...wait for a...new mission."

"I haven't met your Captain yet. Let's go meet him."

The green Heavy wondered what had brought the sudden desire upon his brother.

"Why?"

"I'm bored."

Predaking began to get up when Devastator was thrown at him, causing both of them to crash rather comically onto the ground. Blackout had the decency to look sheepish.

"Opps, sorry Predaking."

Unfortunately, the red Heavy wasn't hearing it. After pushing Devastator off of him, he charged at his younger brother with his sword held high above his head and screaming. Devastator got up and charged as well. The fight began earnestly and the gambling pool was a buzz of activity. Bruticus felt he was pretty lucky to have gotten out of Predaking looking for Galvatron. Predaking could be rather nasty when he wanted to be. A meeting between the two might not end so well.

He resumed his game, guiding the numbers across the screen to greater sums, greater purposes that would allow him to unlock symbols and items for later in the game. Some part of him noted the few Decepticons that were coming closer to him, but he ignored them in favor of the new puzzle that involved his new items. When his brothers' fight came a little closer, he slowed down his gaming to make sure that they didn't crash into him. He was glad that he did, because Blackout was flying right towards him thanks to Devastator. Bruticus stepped to the side neatly avoiding the conflict. However, Blackout instead hit the Decepticons that had been trying to sneak up behind him. The green Heavy glanced over at the space colored Heavy; looked like he was out. There was some groaning from the gambling Decepticons, though Bruticus isn't sure why. It didn't really matter to him though. The number wizard avatar on his game was losing energy.

"Bruticus!"

Devastator's voice rang out loudly, and Bruticus looked up to see both Devastator and Predaking rushing over to him with worried glances. Were they upset about Blackout's collision?

Bruticus was about to voice the fact that he was fine when electricity ran through his body, shocking every sensor in his system. He couldn't feel anything, couldn't see, or voice his displeasure. What had happened, was this what his brothers had been trying to warn him about? Well, he felt that there was nothing to do but wait it out. He hoped that he hadn't broken his number game. That wouldn't be good. He hadn't saved.

The first thing that returned were his audio receptors. There was yelling, it sounded like Devastator, maybe Predaking. Blackout's sonic booms could also be heard, but it was as if they were all far away. Slowly his touch returned online. Was he on fire? He had been set on fire once as a prank by some mean Decepticons when he had first arrived on New Kaon. Blackout had nearly offlined them, but Strika had stopped him from doing anything further. Did this mean it was those mechs again? He hoped darkly that Blackout offlined them.

His optics started working again, and he saw that Predaking was leaning right over again.

"Pred..?" Bruticus managed to struggle out of his vocalizer. He tried to ask what had happened but his vocalizer would only spit out static.

"Hey Bruticus," The red and orange Heavy nodded, "Can you move?"

"I think..." the sentence ended in static again. This was frustrating.

"It's okay little brother," Predaking rumbled reaching down and pulling Bruticus onto his pedes. Bruticus stumbled, but regained his balance. "Let's get you inside."

There was some mobility to his appendages. He tried to help Predaking by holding tightly and moving his pedes as they headed back to the docks to get the green Heavy aboard the Artemis.

"What...happened?"

Predaking didn't answer. He didn't have to.

"Some idiots try and hurt Bruticus," Devastator boomed next to him. "Devastator and Predaking see them. We tried to warn Bruticus but idiots sneaky. Blackout woke up as Bruticus fell down. Predaking chose to stay with Bruticus as Devastator and Blackout chased idiots."

Bruticus decided that was probably the best report he could get out of the green and purple heavy.

The docks weren't that far away, but they were far enough that Bruticus was humiliated as Predaking and Devastator marched him through out the streets of new Kaon. He decided that it wasn't nearly as bad as when they had chosen to escort him to the take off ceremony nearly 30 megacycles ago. Had it really been that long ago? It seemed like only yesterday he had received his transfer orders. He liked Galvatron. And Nightbird was nice. Hook was grumpy, but not mean.

Team Diana.

He was a member of Team Diana now.

Why had he been in the Heavy Bridage barracks? He should be with his captain. Where was his captain? He hadn't seen Galvatron or anybody from his team since they had gotten back to New Kaon. It was almost as if they had never had their adventure against the Autobots and met Ore. That was rather sad. He needed to spend more time with his team. They were his friends now.

They entered the docks to find Nightbird and Blackout waiting for him. Outside and in front of the Artemis was Hook... and Swindle? They seemed to be talking about something. When Predaking carried in Bruticus, Nightbird went over to Hook. Hook himself seemed surprised to see him. He spoke quickly to Nightbird, then turned to them.

"Bring him in."

Hook didn't sound grumpy like he usually did. Bruticus remembered that he had sounded like this when the maimed Galvatron had been brought aboard. He remembered that Galvatron had been in worse condition than himself, he would be fine.

Bruticus surrendered to the growing darkness that was on the side of his vision.

-(\:/)-

Two cycles ago Sky-Byte called to let Galvatron know that he'd be arriving on New Kaon in two cycles. That morning, Galvatron had arranged a meeting between the two of them in their oil house. Sky-Byte had been the first to arrive. Galvatron had arrived a little later. The bar only contained Sky-Byte and the oil tender, because the oil tender tried to keep their meetings private.

"Ah, hail the coming Hero who has proved himself on Polrise 8!"

Sky-Byte certainly liked showering him in meaningless complements. Galvatron didn't really mind or care that much.

"Hail to the Decepticon Admiral, and his bashingly good advice!"

"As a result of your victory, drinks are on myself for this night."

"Wonderful!"

"That doesn't mean I'll pay for the most expensive drink."

"Fine, fine! The usual Breakdown?"

The oil tender grinned. He was a greasy mech, probably a result of his profession. He was also a big mech his good sized shoulders and a buff chest plate splattered with different oils. There was only one orange optic on his faceplate, where the other should have been was an optical patch covering most the right side of his faceplate. Galvatron got along with his pretty well.

"One Silver Valor and one Deep Sinker coming up," Breakdown recited.

"You know me well," Sky-Byte laughed. "Now," he turned his attention to Galvatron, "I've heard the official report, but what's your side of the story?"

"Well old friend," Galvatron looked up to the ceiling pondering, "I'd have to say that we got to the satellite in record time. The Artemis is great by the way, cuts space well. Anyway, we got there and there were about seven Autobots. No one was interested in a confrontation, which was all the better for me. I went down to the surface and began kicking skidplate. At one point there was a little trouble with an Autobot and I retreated to the air. Much to my shock, one of the Autobots had an energy bow! I wasn't expecting them to be able to fight at long range. They almost had me pinned when Nightbird and Bruticus showed up to save my aft. After that, we got our servos on them pretty easily. They had some stasis cuffs lying about, so I tied them up and with the help of Hook, shot them through the space bridge."

He decided to keep Hot Rod and the fact that all the Autobots had survived a secret for now.

"That's a pretty nice story," Breakdown nodded.

"It is," agreed Sky-Byte, leaning back, holding the Deep Sinker that Breakdown had just passed him. Galvatron took the Silver Valor and swung it enthusiastically.

"But what happened after that?" Breakdown seemed curious to know more. Well, he had been on the planet for quite a few cycles. Most of the time that he had spent back on New Kaon was in rigorous training exercises with Cyclonus who expected more from him. Not a cycle had been spent in here until now.

"Nothing at first," Galvatron repiled truthfully. "Things were quiet, though Hook made quite a ruckus in the Autobot barracks. I think he was looking for something. Can't say what. One cycle though, I was outside watching the planet when the ground began lurching. Well, I went back to the Artemis to ask Hook about what had happened. He seemed to think it was Bruticus, still don't know why. Anyway, the ship lurched with the ground while Bruticus was present, so we got the Artemis off satellite. I took Nightbird and Hook to the surface for an investigation. We were down there for a bit when the ground exploded!"

"It what?" Sky-Byte looked rather confused.

"Exploded, at least I think that's what I would call it. Luckily Hook had figured out what was going on right before she did pop up."

"Nightbird popped up?" Breakdown asked. Both he and Sky-Byte seemed a little confused.

"Oh yeah, this isn't in my report," Galvatron turned sheepishly to both mechs after taking other swing of the Silver Valor. "Mind keeping this between us three? I don't want Onslaught getting any satisfaction."

"You have secrecy on my rank," Sky-Byte looked excited.

"I can't make any fancy promises," Breakdown looked around the bar sighing, "Will my word count?"

"I have never heard you go back on your word, so yes. Okay then, the climax!

"This thing bursts through the ground. Can't tell you what it was, I just called her a beastie thingy for a bit. I can't really describe either other than the facts that she big, she had teeth, she had claws, and she had a laser on her tail. Well, I took Nightbird and Hook and ran for it. I managed to hide them and told them to get back to the Artemis while I tried to lose her. So I flew off for quite a bit waiting for someone to tell me that they had got to the Artemis. The beastie caught me though, she shot my wing. I stopped flying forward and instead dropped. She dropped down after me. It wasn't so simple for me because she reached down with her claw and tore off my leg!" Both Breakdown and Sky-Byte's optics looked at his legs. He continued his story, "I fell to the ground and everything went black. According to Hook, Bruticus got me to him, and then he repaired me while Bruticus and Nightbird captured the beastie thingy."

"Ah, recovery," Breakdown laughed, "I know how that is." He tapped his optical patch.

"Yeah, it stunk especially because it was the first time I was really torn apart."

Sky-Byte laughed, "Better then than the future, now you know what to expect."

"I guess you could say that," Galvatron shrugged, "Another drink Breakdown? Usual second."

"Alright, one Back Stab and a Straight Shot?"

"How is it that you know me so well?"

"I just do, carry on Galvatron!"

"Let's see. I woke up two megacycles later, I decided to name the beastie Ore. I decided to let her go. She lives peacefully on Polrise 8 now, as far as I know. I spoke with Onslaught, he told me to come back, right before leaving, Autobots showed up. Nightbird, Bruticus and I kicked their afts. Finally, we came back here."

The three mechs indulged on oil for a bit.

"I couldn't help but notice that you didn't go very far into the fights," Sky-Byte spoke up, "Care to explain?"

"There's nothing really to explain. I don't every remember the details to stuff like that. It's why Cyclonus had such a hard time teaching me anything. Anyway, why are you on New Kaon?"

"I think Onslaught came up with something, he expects us to agree with him. We'll see though."

Breakdown spoke up from his oil, "Another round?"

"'Course!" Galvatron laughed slamming his now empty can on the bar. "You know the next serving!"

"So what do you think of your team?" Sky-Byte asked as Breakdown began retrieving more cans.

"I like most of them. Bruticus is great. Hook is okay, but whenever I try to talk with him, we argue. I...don't know what to make of Nightbird. She's strong, obviously smart, but whenever she looks at me, its like I'm not me anymore. Sometimes she blinks and scowls, but most of the time she just has this creepy awed gaze."

"Ah, yes, well, I was afraid of this." Sky-Byte mused. Breakdown wasn't making optical contact with either of them, meaning he felt guilty about something.

"What do you know?" Galvatron found himself suspicious of both of their attitudes.

"Let's see," Sky-Byte took a drink, and Breakdown disappeared to the back of the oil house to do what only Breakdown knew. "This is a rather long story, but you'll just have to listen."

"I'm listening carefully."

"Okay, first, you need to understand that Nightbird is pretty old. When I mean old, I mean that she was Bludgeon's first Cyberninja student old. She's been around since the Decepticons were first established on Cybertron itself. That means she served under the original Galvatron."

Slag, he should have seen that coming. It seemed to be his lot in spark to be forever haunted by the ghost of his namesake. Whoop dee fragging doo.

He groaned dropping his helm into his arms and leaned down onto the bar counter. Sky-Byte remained oblivious.

"She served as his assassin and was fanatically loyal to him, I think you remember Lugnut? She was like that."

"Sorry, haven't met Lugnut. I've only heard of him from Strika," which was true. Strika tended to go on and on about her love when given the chance. It got annoying after a while.

"Think of an over obsessive Shockwave that thinks Megatron is a god."

Galvatron did his best to picture the double agent as such. It was rather difficult, because although Shockwave did enjoy loyal servitude, Shockwave had always struck him as relatively sane. An obsessive Shockwave...is actually pretty easy to imagine, even if it was disturbing.

"Anyway, I don't know much about her. She never spoke to anyone, expect the original Galvatron. Straxus is the only person alive who has heard her voice as far as I know. After Galvatron was defeated by Megatron, Nightbird tried to kill Megatron. I think she thought that Galvatron I was still sane, though we both know it wasn't so."

"Trying to conquer seven planets at once isn't a sane move," Galvatron pointed out sourly. He didn't like conversations that seemed to center around the mech in discussion. They tended to end with strange looks in his direction. "So Nightbird looks at me with those funny glances because I look like Galvatron?"

"I would say that it is a very high possibility," Sky-Byte finished up and moved to check the time, at which he spewed oil.

"That was gross," Galvatron commented for the sake of commenting.

"I'm sorry Galvatron, I didn't realize the time! I've got a meeting with the Council in a few minutes. Here," Sky-Byte thrust something into Galvatron's servo, "for Breakdown. I'll run by your ship after the meeting to pick it up. See you soon!"

Sky-Byte disappeared out the door. Breakdown appeared in his place by the door, turning on the open sign. A few mechs came in behind the oil tender, and said tender took the datapad that Sky-Byte had given Galvatron for a second, scribbling, then returned it to Galvatron.

"Get going so I can clean up his mess," Breakdown grumbled. Galvatron turned and saw the oil that Sky-Byte had spit was all over the bar counter.

"I'll get going..." the purple mech stood up and exited the oil house as quick as one could while retaining some profession dignity.

As soon as he cleared the crowd of mechs that were attempting to enter the oil house, Galvatron took off to return to his ship. It was a short flight, because the oil house tended to do better on mechs that were passing through. He entered the docks to find three members of the Heavy Brigade sitting outside his ship. Even more troublesome were the worried looks on their faces. Something told him Bruticus was in trouble. Okay, it was rather obvious.

Upon entering the Artemis, Galvatron found himself face to face with a strange bronze mech he had never seen before.

"Ah, you must be Galvatron, what an honor to meet you! Hook's in the medical bay with Bruticus. Poor mech was ambushed apparently. I'm afraid that you just missed Nightbird though, her commlink turned on then she just took off."

"Thanks, but just one slight problem...Who the slag are you, and what the frag are you doing on my ship?"

"Oh, sorry about that," the mech laughed as he followed Galvatron who was walking rather quickly to the medical bay, "Swindle, Galactic Arms Dealer, at your service. I was in the middle of some rather large transactions with Hook when Devastator showed up with Bruticus."

"Yes, well, nice to meet you Swindle, but if you could wait in the cargo bay while I deal with this emergency, I think it would be the best for all of us. Strictly speaking, this is Team Diana business and you're not on Team Diana."

"Alright then, I'll just see myself out," the arms dealer's smile seemed to widen. Galvatron had a sudden feeling of foreboding that he deemed necessary to address.

"Just so you know, I've memorized the inventory of this ship, and if I find anything missing I will hunt you down."

Swindle's smile dropped just a bit before leaving Galvatron's line of sight. The young Decepticon turned and entered the medical bay to find Hook scruying about. Bruticus was laying unconscious on the table that Galvatron himself had recently been on. Bruticus himself didn't look so bad physically, aside for slight burns on the edges of his armor. Some of Bruticus' armor had been removed, showing just how much damage had been done to the Heavy's system. Out of the thousands of wires that made up Bruticus' reflex system, it appeared that a large fraction had been extremely fried. That would explain Hook running around with handfuls of wires.

"Um...Hook?"

"What do you want?" Hook snarled without looking up. He appeared to be in a bad mood today. "I'm a bit preoccupied in case you hadn't seen the inexplictly large mech!"

"Well, I just wanted to know-"

"Spit it out!"

"What can I do for Bruticus?"

The engineer faltered and turned to look at the captain in what Galvatron guess was complete and utter shock on a level that Galvatron had never seen before. For the first time in all the time that Galvatron had known the mech, which wasn't very long, Hook wasn't quick to reply.

"You can't do anything. Go bother someone else."

Galvatron exited the medical bay feeling dejected, but didn't return to the cargo bay in slight fear of that weapons dealer mech, Swindle was his name? He went to his room. It was still blank, except for the shelves that were now filling up with Datapads that Hook had given him from the Autobot barracks and his holopics. There had been a few Autobot novels there that Hook was going to delete, but Galvatron had grabbed them before anything like that had happened. He took one off the shelf and laid down on his bed to read. The novel was very biased, a young Autobot recruit in the Great War, his triumphs on the battlefield, his rising in the ranks. It was all rather boring to Galvatron, but it was better than the Decepticon novels where a Decepticon gave his life to save Megatron. Anything was better than that.

As he read, time seemed to slip away. It wasn't entirely bad. All that the captain was waiting for was a) the recovery of Bruticus or b) the return of Nightbird. There was also c) Sky-Byte arriving to take back the datapad which Galvatron had now assumed to hold the Admiral's account codes.

His attention diverted from the novel to the datapad that held these powerful codes. He didn't have his own credit codes. Lost them stellar cycles ago. This meant, unfortunately, that he couldn't make any important purchases. He was willing to bet all of his now non-existant credits that Hook would scorn him for that. Not much he could do though. He wondered if telling Swindle that he was broke would keep the salesmech off his back. Probably not.

The little light on the edge of his vision indicating a commlink request lit up and blinked red in an annoying matter. He pushed the receive button on the side of his helm. No sound emerged, that meant it was Nightbird, and if Nightbird was trying to establish some sort of communication, it was probably important. Unfortunately, the conversation with Sky-Byte leaked in and his processor reminded him of who Nightbird had been. Galvatron shook his helm to clear his processor before he exited his quarters.

Turned out that Nightbird and Sky-Byte were in the cargo bay, and Sky-Byte was speaking with the...interesting...salesmech Swindle.

"Ah," Sky-Byte looked up and saw Galvatron and arrived, "Perfect timing Galvatron, do you have my datapad? I need it to by this wonderful object of interest that Swindle as shown me."

Galvatron was glad he was.

"Here," he said tossing the datapad towards his friend. He really didn't want to get into anything in front of the salesmech. Looking for something else to focus on, he turned his attention to Nightbird.

She looked nervous. Normally she would stand still awaiting orders and staring at him. Right now, she was twitching and not making optical contact. Actually, she appeared to be staring at Sky-Byte, who was still chatting away with Swindle. They were standing up now, and Swindle appeared to be leaving. Thank the AllSpark.

Sky-Byte turned back to Galvatron with his well recognized nervous/guilty smile.

"Oh, no," Galvatron looked him right in the optics. "What's happened now?"

"Well," Sky-Byte paused for dramatic affect, "You've been assigned a new mission."

"Ah, so that's what the meeting was about today. So what's Onslaught's new game plan?"

"I wouldn't call it a game plan. This time it really will be an important task to the Decepticon Cause."

He shot Sky-Byte a skeptical look, "Oh, really?"

"You're to get to the Autobot colony Lithone but you're not to engage until further orders."

The purple captain arched an optical ridge.

"Basically we go there and do nothing."

"If it makes you feel better, you have to leave soon and get there by timecode 3.01."

Galvatron rolled his optics and went back inside. "Let's go Nightbird, with Bruticus out and Hook watching him, we'll have to lift this ship by ourselves."

He didn't turn back to see if Sky-Byte had left the ship. There was more to this mission than the Admiral was letting on but if he didn't want to tell, then Galvatron wouldn't prod. Even if he was still suffering from the obsessive Shockwave images.

Upon entering the bridge, Galvatron stood in Bruticus' space while Nightbird took her own seat. By themselves, they operated the lift off procedures. The silence made Galvatron feel slightly lonely, though he couldn't understand why. Much time on the surface of New Kaon had been spent searching for the hush that now haunted him. There was a sense of tension around Nightbird. Maybe she felt awkward with being with him in the same room alone because of the original Galvatron. But Sky-Byte had something about Nightbird never speaking to people. It was probably him.

He took the controls and had the Artemis rise off the surface of the New Kaon slowly until they were in the atmosphere. He set the ship into autopilot with the coordinates for Lithone entered.

One last time, he turned and looked at Nightbird. She was still fidgeting.

"This is Hook," a familiar voice pinged. "Just letting you know that I've fixed Bruticus up a bit, but he won't be going out anytime soon. Seeing as you've left New Kaon, I guess there's something you need to tell me."

He couldn't help it. Galvatron chuckled. "Why don't you meet me on the bridge and I'll explain everything?"

* * *

><p>If you've made it this far, congrats! I understand that this chapter is long and mostly things we already know. Please Review telling me what the fragging do I should change. Thanks!<p> 


	7. Nightbird Part 1

Writing has become so much more difficult for me lately, I think it's because the only Transformers on TV is G1. I'm not complaining about G1! Recently, this Christmas actually, I received season 2 of Transformers G1. We also got this new beautiful TV, and two new computers! They're beautiful, I've named them Mac and Lopez. Mac is a MacBook (obviously) and Lopez is this Dell which is _excatly _the same color as Lopez from Red vs Blue Season 7.

Anyway, here's the Nightbird Arc, next is the Bruticus Arc, (which will be a huge pain), then the Hook Arc, and finally, the highly anticipated Galvatron Arc! It's all organized in my head. I plan on sticking around a long time with this piece!

Enjoy!

* * *

><p><span>In which the Autobot Colony Lithone is approached<span>

**Timecode: 9501.3.02**

The Decepticons towards the end of the Great War had focused on keeping control of Cybertron. The major colonies that had been captured by Decepticons had been founded under the original Galvatron, but most of them were on the outer ring of Cybertronian colonies. Cybertron itself had been surrounded by Autobot colonies that formed a shield of sorts against the rest of the universe. New Kaon had been chosen as the Decepticon capital because of its proximity to Cybertron.

Lithone was one of the more outer Autobot colonies. The planet wasn't very much at first sight because of the thick acid rain clouds that muffled its skies, though there were breaks. What made the planet so important, according to the records that Hook had forced him to read, were the oil wells deep within the planet. It just so happened, however, that this colony was on the other side of the Autobot space. That meant they would have to fly around the Autobot space to get to this place. Unlike the quick ride to Polrise 8 and back, this would take a full three megacycles. They would arrive in the planet's air space in about ten cycles, since they had been flying non-stop.

Bruticus had gotten better from his attack back on New Kaon. He would limp and whenever Hook caught him out of the medical bay, the engineer would explode. Hook claimed that though he appeared fine, his wiring was still a mess. The only time that Hook wasn't working on Bruticus was when he was on bridge duty. Galvatron was forcing him to do so partly because he didn't want to trade sections with Nightbird all the time, and partly so Bruticus could get out of the medical bay without Hook knowing.

Nightbird's ecstatic behavior hadn't changed, unfortunately. Before going to recharge the first megacycle away from New Kaon, he had come to the conclusion that her behavior was a result of meeting with Sky-Byte on the way back to the Artemis. Her behavior had only gotten stranger though. Thinking about it now, Nightbird had never left the Artemis unless she had been asked by Hook to run a favor. He had asked her to secure some parts for the Artemis, she had returned with Swindle so that Hook could do the bargaining in person. According to the creepy salesmech, Nightbird had received a ping on her commlink and left of her own free will without so much as a twitch. A cycle later, she had returned with Sky-Byte. What had she been doing? Could whatever she had been doing have caused her twitch? Why would she have been with Sky-Byte?

These questions raced through Galvatron's processor as he stared at the screen of his datapad with an Autobot novel inscribed. He had hoped reading something would help him clear his processor, but it wasn't working. In fact, the questions only rained down harder. This in itself was confusing. He had never been close to Sky-Byte or Cyclonus until they had known each other for over a stellar cycle. Why was he so worried about her? Being worried for Bruticus was easy. He was a nice Decepticon and those were hard to come by. Hook, well, Hook rarely put himself in the path of danger, so no worries there.

Galvatron tried to concentrate on his new novel. Miror Prime was facing the Fallen in the classic battle of good versus evil. Not much to miss. What was he supposed to do anyway.

Interest now completely lost in his book, Galvatron it put aside for later. Hook might yell at him for procrastinating, but Galvatron just couldn't read unless there was something at the end of the road to look forward to. Sky-Byte had bribed him into reading piloting manuals by taking him out to oil. Cyclonus required no reading, everything was completely hands on. That meant he got beaten to scrap until he learned to not get beaten into scrap, which he was much better at now. It also meant charge until you can get a hit. Cyclonus rarely ever spoke during their lessons. Galvatron had to learn through experience. Even when finally hitting Cyclonus, the purple fighter had claimed that most bots rarely fought like him. He had then proceeded to copy different fighting styles to help Galvatron get what little variety he could get.

Eventually, mostly because of the overbearing silence that filled his room, Galvatron left his quarters for search of intelligent conversation that would help clear his processor. That meant Bruticus. Hook would have him in the medical bay at the moment, but Bruticus could still speak to him. Hook would just provide commentary. It was a little annoying, but Galvatron had gotten used to it.

He entered the medical bay to find Hook recharging on his desk. Bruticus was laying on the berth still. He appeared to be awake.

"Yo," Galvatron whispered in fear of awakening Hook. "You awake Bruticus?"

"Hello...Galvatron," the green Heavy groaned and looked at his captain. "Hook's been...recharging for...a while."

"Yeah, well, I don't want to deal with his interruptions this cycle. How're you doing?"

"I'm...feeling better. My circuits...no longer...sting. Hook says...I can leave...tomorrow."

"That's not stopping you from leaving normally, is it?"

"...Not really."

"That's nice to know. I've got the next bridge shift, and I was wondering if you'd keep me company."

"Oh...why?"

"By the AllSpark, I don't know. I've just got this feeling in my spark."

"...Okay."

"Thanks."

For a moment, the two simply sat there basking in the presence of the other. Galvatron decided to bring up one of the topics that was bothering his tired processor since Hook didn't appear to be waking up anytime soon.

"Hey Bruticus, do you think Nightbird has been acting weird?"

"Yep."

Galvatron was slightly surprised that Bruticus hadn't hesitated to answer. Maybe he had been waiting to have this conversation.

"So what have you noticed?"

"She's...gotten paranoid. She's always...looking over...her shoulder. She seems...afraid of something. I...don't know what...but she seems...sad."

Sad? Galvatron hadn't picked up on that.

"Nightbird was fine when I left the Artemis that morning."

"...Yeah. She was...normal when...Predaking brought me...back from...the Heavy Brigade...Barracks."

The captain made a mental note to have Hook work on the big mech's vocalizer.

"So between the time you were dragged back and I returned, Nightbird left the Artemis. We don't know what she was doing, but something happened to make her...let's call her 'twitchy' for now."

"Okay. When did... she leave?"

"The insane salesmech said shortly after you arrived, which was right before I arrived. She came back with Sky-Byte."

"Then Sky-Byte is obviously part of all this!"

Both Galvatron and Bruticus turned to see Hook leaning back in his chair watching them out of the corner of his optic.

"How long..." Bruticus failed to end.

"I've been awake the whole time," the engineer answered rudely and attempting to look superior, "Galvatron's been sneaking you out of here, so I decided to head you two off this cycle. Anyway, I didn't expect you two to start speaking about our resident Cyberninja."

"Are you saying you haven't noticed the difference in her lately?" Galvatron asked stunned.

"Of course I've seen the difference! Even a mech with malfunctioning viz-scanners could see it!"

"Oh...do you want to...help us...figure out why?"

"Not really. But I have been suffering from slight boredom lately, so why not? You were exchanging facts?"

"Well," Galvatron thought aloud, "I'm pretty sure Sky-Byte has something to do with it. They did both arrive back at the same time."

"How do you know that they arrived at the same time? She could've been back and Sky-Byte had just arrived to tell us our new...mission."

Hook emphasized the word mission. He didn't seem to like the word, but Galvatron didn't know why. In any event, he returned to the original topic.

"I'm pretty sure they did. She kept looking at him."

"And she wasn't just looking at him because he's one of the reasons that we're on these missions?"

Galvatron mulled over the possibility, then shook his head.

"Sky-Byte likes me. He wouldn't put me to death like the other idiots on the Council."

"That doesn't have anything to do with Nightbird's impression."

"Well, there was no aura of hate and pain. She was just looking at him. Looked kind of guilty, actually."

"Guilty?" Bruticus perked up.

"She wouldn't make optical contact with me."

A slight shudder went through the ship. Galvatron recognized the sensation, though Bruticus and Hook were shooting confused looks around the room.

"What's...going on?"

"We're slowing down," Galvatron whispered.

"What's Nightbird doing?" Hook snarled before running out of the room. Galvatron returned his attention to Bruticus.

"I'm going with Hook, will you be okay on your own?"

"Don't...worry," Bruticus' jaw lifted in what Galvatron interrupted as a smile, "Just keep me...informed."

Galvatron gave one last nod to his companion before dashing out himself.

-(\:/)-

Sitting in the berth for so long was both good and bad. Good, because he was given more time alone with his thoughts. Bad, because he almost forgot how his motor functions worked.

Bruticus watched his captain and the engineer leave him. The conversation had spurred many questions. Questions that needed answers. Answers that he could access through Decepticon command frequencies.

He slowly sat up, mindful of the circuitry damage done to him megacycles back. Hook had replaced all the damaged sections, but some of the wires had yet to properly install. Delicate work such as this was best left to his self-repair functions. Luckily, his main motor systems were quick to healing.

The Decepticon Heavy walked out the sliding door, conscious of its swish that closed it behind him. He walked down the halls toward the cargo area. There was a terminal he could reconfigure to pick up the command signals. It might take a bit of time, but Bruticus knew the systems of the Artemis even better than Hook, who had mostly designed the more practical parts of the ship, simply because systems always gave you practical answers. When he had been a young member of the Heavy Brigade, before confronting Megatron, Bruticus had looked for the answers to his questions within the Decepticon database. They had been much more informative than Lugnut. He trusted the system more than he trusted most mechs, like Megatron.

Like always, the cargo bay had crates upon crates stacked around. Half of the floor opened to allow docking. The terminal the Bruticus had been musing about was off to the left hand corner. He began to make his way toward it. In the side of his vision, he saw a small flicker. His head spun to investigate, but there wasn't anything there. He turned back to the terminal.

The terminal's screen lit up white, then violet. The keyboard folded out, and Bruticus placed his thumbs on the pad. Keyboards were a little harder than his number game, but he could adjust. Bruticus took a deep vent before letting his thumbs fly over the keys. It had been a while since he had attempted an entry into the database, but ever since Megatron had left for the AllSpark, security had grown lax.

All unessential trains of thought were stopped as he began to concentrate on the digits flying across the screen. They weren't that different from getting into the Autobot database, so he considered himself in practice. .35317.85642.352753.65432.5235.785... He passed the levels of firewalls for the normal Decepticon security with ease. He wanted to laugh, but returned his complete attention to the more difficult part of the firewalls. The Council had a much longer and more difficult security frequency. 10010111010101001011101-101001011101110100101010-0100010111010101001011010-...

Bruticus lost track of time, focusing on his work. He didn't even recognize the lurch of the ship, as if something had been fired. He watched the growing lines of data in front of him. This was taking much longer than he could remember. Maybe security had updated? Finally, the frequencies synchronized.

First, he accessed the most recent meeting of the Council of Generals. There wasn't much. Something about an Autobot that needed to be eliminated. And setting the elimination with a 'competent plan of action'. He couldn't get much out of it. There was nothing in Sky-Byte's journal log, in the same security folder. Huffing unhappily at the lack of information turning up, Bruticus began to scan anything worth scanning, simply for gathering purposes. Most of the information seemed trivial at the moment, but Bruticus had learned that having anything was better than nothing.

As his mind traveled at astonishing speeds throughout the database, he managed to get into Shockwave's intelligence files. They were a real prize and he congratulated himself. Shockwave's security frequency and firewalls were the most sophisticated that he had ever encountered. Never before had he been able to get into the double agent's files. Greedily, he began to scan the newer reports.

'HB and LA will be traveling to Lithone 1.3.03 for an IR. Opportunity to commence Operation: Gemini inbound. Send Cyberninja NB.'

Most of Shockwave's reports were like this, but Bruticus pause at this one. Lithone, that's where he was headed. The date was tomorrow. They were to arrive tomorrow. Were they to assist Shockwave in his Operation: Gemini? HB, LA, NB, IR? LA was easy enough, Longarm which was Shockwave's Autobot identity. HB... who was close to Shockwave with initials like that? Oh, of course, Highbrow. Head of Intelligence Highbrow. IR then was probably an intelligence report. Operation: Gemini was probably an assassination plot to get Longarm higher into the Intelligence Department.

'Send Cyberninja NB.'

It hit Bruticus harder than the Nemesis' firepower.

This wasn't a mission for Team Diana. It was a mission for Cyberninja Nightbird. Such a mission would probably end in her deactivation. That was the point of Team Diana, wasn't it? For them all to die. Only Galvatron wouldn't let them die.

He needed to tell Galvatron, they needed to help Nightbird. It was what teammates did, right?

Bruticus saved all of the found data and turned around to see Galvatron in the doorway of the cargo bay looking slightly spooked and vents whirling.

"Have you seen Nightbird?"

-(\:/)-

Perhaps the first thought that had gone through her mind when she had been called to the Council of Generals was outright refusal. They were Megatron's pawns, the pieces he used to control the rest of the Decepticon Army, and they were almost completely useless without him. Traitors to the true leader of Decepticons. Especially Straxus.

None the less, she had risen out of two things, a small curiosity of to know why they would wish to see her, and to escape the salesmech Swindle's ongoing chatter that was good for his position although annoying after a while. She had entered the Council of Generals' strategic chambers only to be completely ignored for a cycle. They had, eventually, motioned for Nightbird to join them. Their topic was one she was familiar with given her past experience with Galvatron.

"Highbrow will arrive in 3 megacycles," General Dynobot had told her. "He will be accompanied by Longarm, who is really Shockwave in his Autobot disguise. Shockwave has climbed the latter as far as he can get at the moment. The Autobot Council has known Highbrow since the end of the reign of Galvatron," he hadn't seem to notice the tensing of her frame, "and have no wish to replace him. The only way that Shockwave could become the Intelligence Prime is if Highbrow were to meet an... unfortunate end."

"This is where we will need you," General Strika had brought up a holographic image of Lithone, "The Autobots there wear repelling clocks to protect themselves against the acid rain. Hiding among them and killing Highbrow should be easy."

"It's finding a way to kill Highbrow and make Shockwave appear completely innocent that is your real challenge," Admiral Sky-Byte had spoke up without making optical contact. He had looked bored, but he, too, was tense. "However you wish to do so, just make it believable."

"Here are the exact times of the schedule for Lithone," Razorclaw had produced a datapad and handed it over to her. "You know your mission, it shouldn't be too difficult for you to execute."

Nightbird had expected the datapad. Sky-Byte had walked with her to the Artemis, said something about not letting Galvatron know about it. How he would try to find another way. It was unacceptable.

Killing was part of war. You decreased the enemy's numbers so that you could overpower said enemy and reach your goal.

Galvatron II was not his namesake.

The rest of Team Diana seemed to recognize her inner conflict. Galvatron II especially. It hadn't mattered though. In a megacycle, nothing would matter.

Upon seeing the approaching Lithone upon the Artemis' sensors, Nightbird had sabotaged the ships navigation systems. Nothing serious, but it would keep Galvatron II stuck for a megacycle or two. By then, she would have completed her mission. After that, she had gone down to the shuttle bay, narrowly avoiding Bruticus and left the ship to finish the trip to Lithone on her own.

It would be a while until she had arrived on Lithone. She let memories circle her concious. Normally they would be about the reign of her true leader, Galvatron.

This cycle, they were about the little time spent with Team Diana.

And she couldn't understand why.

-(\:/)-

Hook had run to find Nightbird in the bridge only to find that she wasn't in the bridge. Instead, he had been greeted by a completely trashed room with a few broken monitors and a ruined control board that would need replacing. Galvatron had been quick to enter the room behind him. He hadn't allowed the young mech the luxury of gaping.

"Go and find her NOW!" the engineer had screamed. Galvatron hadn't stayed around to ask why.

Currently the engineer was evaluating the damage done to the bridge. It hadn't looked that bad at first, but like Bruticus' injuries, it was much worse on the inside. It would take him at least a megacycle to repair the damage. A far off part of his processor wondered if the Cyberninja had been inspired by the Heavy's injuries. Didn't matter, he would yell at the stupid femme for taking the growing anxiety on 'his' bridge! Then he would fix the bridge. Finally, he would keep Nightbird from doing anything on their next mission.

Because of his whirling processor, he didn't notice how much time had passed when both Galvatron and Bruticus entered the bridge.

"I see!" Hook snarled upon their entrance. "So this was a plot between the three of you to get Bruticus out of the medical bay early!"

"What?" Galvatron exclaimed in a kind of shock that was too real for the situation.

"Fine! Nevermind! Where's Nightbird?"

"Oh, that," Bruticus and Galvatron walked up closer to Hook, "She's gone."

"What do you mean she's gone?"

"I mean I can't find her anywhere and the shuttle from the cargo bay is missing. So either you sold it to Swindle, or she took it to leave."

"Why?"

"She was...given a...mission," Bruticus spoke up.

"Of course she was given a mission!" Hook shouted in anger, "she's part of Team Diana! We all have the same mission!"

"Nightbird...was given a...separate mission."

"Oh really," Hook looked at the ceiling in annoyance.

"Hook, do us all a favor and shut up. Please continue Bruticus."

"Looked up...Council Database."

"You have the key?" Hook interrupted.

"...No."

"Then how the frag did you access their information?"

Bruticus looked at him that peeved Hook. It clearly said, 'shut up and listen'.

"Frequency."

Both Hook and Galvatron waited for Bruticus to continue. The Heavy's expression went from annoyed to embarrassed.

"I...used a terminal...and synchronized...frequencies...manually..."

"Bruticus," Hook almost whispered, "do you mean to tell me that you were entering in numbers as fast as the terminal? And you were entering them in correctly within the time limit?"

"...Yes?"

Hook was silent for a moment.

"Who are you?" This time, he did whisper.

"He's Bruticus!" Galvatron finally spoke up hitting Bruticus' arm with a grin. "He's got a lot going on up there in that huge head of his. It would be best to not underestimate him!"

The Heavy looked proud, but also embarrassed. He was probably never praised for his processor before.

"So big guy," the Captain continued, "Nightbird was sent on a mission separate from us, did they say where or why?"

"Shockwave will be...traveling to Lithone...with Autobot Head of Intelligence...Highbrow Prime."

"Highbrow Prime?"

"Don't interrupt Bruticus!"

"Will be arriving...1.3.03...send Cyberninja...NB for...assassination."

"NB? Do you mean Nightbird?" Hook spoke out again. Galvatron seemed to be annoyed, though Bruticus wasn't.

"The message...said send NB. Nightbird is...a Cyberninja...and has left us. I'm going...to assume that means...she is NB."

"Your evidence is sound," Hook nodded despite himself. "Carry on."

"...That's it." Bruticus confessed.

"It's enough for me," Galvatron boomed. "Let's see, Nightbird is going to Lithone for an assassination, one she might not survive. She left us here so we couldn't do anything about her. But before she left, she attempted to cripple the ship..."

Galvatron went silent, optics off and chin in a hand. Hook didn't know what could be going through the Decepticon Captain's processor. Finally, Galvatron's shoulders slumped.

"Please tell me one of you knows what Shockwave looks like in his disguise?" he asked crossly.

"Of course!" Hook put out rather insulted by the fact that Galvatron didn't seem to think that he didn't. He and Bruticus chose to stare at him. "I'm the one who designed his disguise!"

"Really?" Galvatron didn't appear to be insulting, just curious, "and how did you pull that off?"

"A mix of Autobot coding from Scientific Officer Blackarachnia and Triple Changer technology."

"So you know what this 'Longarm' form will look like?"

"I just answered that question you slagtard."

"And how long would it take you to fix this ship enough that I could fly to Lithone, maybe with Bruticus and myself helping?"

Hook looked around again at his beautiful ship. "Less than a megacycle, if you're thinking about heading off Nightbird. But we won't get there in time even if you two did pass me parts."

"Through Decepticon territory? No, we wouldn't make it," Galvatron agreed, then grinned, "But we'll be cutting through Autobot territory. That should shave off about twelve cycles. Try your calculations again."

The engineer did so, then sighed while taking out a datapad, "I'm going to need..."


End file.
